Rouge the Kid
by FuzzyLearner
Summary: Tails unlocks new potential when studying a Chaos Emerald, but when Rouge tries to swipe the Emerald for herself, she becomes an accidental test subject. How would this new Rouge adjust to the world, and can she be returned to normal?
1. Chapter 1

**Hey, I'm FuzzyLearner and this is my first story on FanFiction.**

 **For a bit of backstory on why I'm doing this, there are interactive stories on ' ' called Rouge the Lab Rat (1 and 2) and I have contributed some chapters to the second. Since FanFiction allows for lengthier entries but prohibits CYOA, I'll update a linear spin of it here and continue the shorter ones over there. Credits to Airship-King for hosting both interactives and all the contributing authors, even the ones that make endless lists of characters.**

 **This is the part where I must state that I do not claim the rights to any characters held by SEGA.**

-Broadcast-

"Hello and welcome to the evening news.

Well looks like it's that time again folks. Seemed not so long ago since the last Chaos Control and the Emeralds are already up for grabs. This could be fortunate for anyone who might find one, but that also rings painfully true for Dr. Ivo 'Eggman' Robotnik, who lead a small army of robotic minions earlier today to secure the purple Emerald. Thankfully, due to the heroic efforts of Sonic the Hedgehog and his pilot and teammate Miles 'Tails' Prower, Eggman's offensive was foiled and kept the gem out of his possession. Now the race is on and mark one up for Team Sonic."

The television screen faded to pitch black. Standing up for her couch was the infamous jewel and treasure thief Rouge the Bat. Hearing the news has brought a smirk to her face. She's been waiting patiently for this moment to arrive. Her place was already brimming with fine jewelry, precious metals, even some important paperwork which she can use as blackmail, which can be even more valuable if used correctly. The allure of the Chaos Emeralds+ were an entirely different story though. Even if they don't look that far off of other cut gems, many were drawn to their unimaginable power. Personally, she didn't care about that. Just the rarity of them and the demand was enough the make them her highest priority targets. While she can go out and hunt for it and get her hands dirty, she did not build her reputation as a great thief for nothing.

"Usually I'd wait this out, but they made it too easy for me. Mmph...Now while Sonic can use the power of Chaos Control, he's so cocky that he probably thinks he can make do without it. So the next one to hold it would be the fox boy. Mmph, mmph...This is going to be easy."

-Tails' Workshop and Runway-

Working away at an unidentified contraption, the dual tailed fox spoke to himself to sort out his thoughts.

"I've always seen Sonic use Chaos Energy to do impressive things; it just seems to come naturally to him. I mean, I created a fake Emerald, but I've only been able to use them as a pure power source. If Eggman can even restrain Super Sonic, then I need to be able to harness the other properties of it as well."

He rhythmically switched from drilling in bolts to welding the casting together. All the components were in place to Tails' specifications, leaving him only the task to sterilize it before he could to run his test.

"It's small but this could leave me with a better understanding of how to use it." He looked off in the corner of his eyes to a small clay pot in the other room.

After finishing the last steps of containment, Tails inspects his newest creation. A chrome surfaced chamber with reinforced doors and walls with various computers, gauges, and dials attached standing out of the way of anything else important. It seemed like it contain a spontaneous explosion, or protect someone from one.

"Now...", Tails looks at the potted seedling he grabbed from the other room, "If I do this right, I might be able to grasp the concept of its manipulation of time." He gently places the pot in the chamber and the door closed. He keys in commands into the console and stepped back. A countdown initiated. On the last count, the inside of the capsule shined a bright light that nearly slipped though the cracks of the double doors. In a matter of seconds, it stopped and rang a tone signaling the end of the test.

A little hesitant, Tails pushed the button to open the doors. A light fog had spread across the floor. Peering inside, the seedling had grown into a healthy looking shrub. It had aged months or even a year.

"It worked! Success!"

-Outside Tails' Workshop - Night-

The darkness of the night had swept across the landscape. The runway was far enough from the lights of the city to blanket the sky in an unlimited amount of stars. But while the sky was clear, the cove under the cliffs hid an imminent threat. Rouge was just underneath Tails' place and plotting her next course of action. She had the option to sneak in earlier, but she would have to run the risk of needless conflict. Instead she managed to place a small wireless microphone on the building to fed into an receiver clipped to her left ear. Throughout the time the bat waited, she heard the fox going on and on about his experiments. Most of Tails' ramblings weren't exactly beyond her comprehension, practically painting a clear image of the location of her target.

"He must be in his nerdy little heaven, huh?" Rouge mumbled to herself, "Sorry I have to do this, but I'm going to spoil your fun."

As a few more moments pass, the mic went quiet. There was no talking, no sounds from the machine, no footsteps, just quiet. If the microphone was touched or being jammed, there would have been some kind of interference or feedback. It seemed to Rouge that Tails might have turned in for the night. If not, she had spent all day staking out for probably the easiest Emerald to get just to lose her patience and blow it.

Fifteen minutes later, it was clear that whatever was going on was there to stay. "Well this wasn't an exciting day." Rouge spread her wings and flew up, approaching the workshop. "In fact, I might be a little jealous of Foxboy. Playing away at that machine...To each their own, I guess, and now it's my turn."

Despite being a place where a genius does his work, the framework of his workshop was basic and there were practically no defensive measures. It was too easy for everyone to get in, especially a thief. Once inside, her eyes navigated through the dark to find a real item of interest. The machine illuminated its keyboard and gauges giving her a near perfect view of the outside. What she couldn't see though was a compartment to place a power source. Seeing that the machine was in some kind of standby phase meant that it must still be running, so it to be somewhere. That left one other place, inside.

After the string of fortunate events for the bat, there was a hiccup in that the doors were closed. She could have tried to force her way into it, but the thing was built like a tank. If she could have managed anyway, she would have definitely made too much noise. Thinking she had no easier option, she took a crack at the keyboard to see if there was an 'open doors' key. There wasn't. It must have been on the screen then. Bringing the machine back from standby, Rouge saw many windows clouded with an overwhelming amount of notes. Sorting through them to try to find how to make the doors open, she found one interest window. The experiments Tails performed on the potted plant were extensive as it showed a spreadsheet as the different stages of its development. According to the results, the plant shriveled up at the ten year mark, but was brought back to life when it went backwards to eight years. Interesting, but she was getting sidetracked. Leaving that window, she found the command and grinned as the doors became ajar.

She doesn't have to inspect the inside for long to find the Emerald. It was encased in the ceiling of the chamber with no visible way to take it out. An inconvenience to say the least. Resulting to her arsenal, the glass cutter yielded nothing as it was coated with something that stopped it in its tracks. She also had a plasma laser that could cut through it like a warm knife through butter, but the compartment containing the gem was reflective which could make the laser move unpredictably. Analyzing the situation, she came to a conclusion. She found the Emerald and needed to get away; nothing else mattered. She would use brute force to break the glass and make her escape while Tails would be in a state of confusion. Rouge focused on the heel of her kicking foot, jumped, and hit it with everything she got. Adrenaline coursed through her body as time seemed to slow down. From the point her boot met the glass came a small crack that grew slowly...slowly...until the glass completely shattered. The force also caused the Emerald to come loose and fall. With her quick reflexes, the jewel thief caught the gem in mid-air.

What she didn't suspected was what the machine did next. The chamber door slammed shut as soon the purple Emerald fell. The clever bat was trapped inside with no way out. Lights flickered on and off and it felt like the walls were rocking in place. In her hands, the Emerald flashed as the machine was drawing on its power. Rouge could only stand there as the intensity of the light was becoming too much to bear. She got blinded as the machine malfunctioned.

-Morning-

The light from the sun snaked its way through the blinds, reaching the sleeping fox Mobian's eyes. The boy genius wakes up from his bed, complete unaware to what happen last night. Recalling what he was doing the previous day, Tails snapped right back into it and resume work on his machine. Neglecting to eat breakfast, he went to the plant are was relieved it didn't dry out or reverted back to a seedling. Then swifting his attention to the screen, he nearly jumped out of his fur after seeing all the errors. No matter how much he tried, the same windows he closed would pop back up again. Left with no other option, he hit the emergency override command to open the doors. While he didn't know what to expect, he was not in any way prepared for what he witnessed.

The chamber housed a sleeping inhabitant. A young bat girl lying on her side, grasping the purple power source in one of her hands. The striking part was her familiar face and the outfit she wore. Everything around her just scream 'Rogue the Bat'. Tails wasn't absolutely sure about her face since it wasn't bathe in make-up, but the black fabric, breastplate, gloves, and boots were a dead giveaway.

"How did this even happen?" The boy questioned. He scanned the inside of the chamber and saw the structural damage and focused on the Emerald she was gripping in her sleep. "I guess that explains the warnings. She must have broke the ceiling, sending it into a critical condition. But that doesn't explain why it made her younger..." Pacing back and forth on the ground seeking for a solution, he returns to the plant. "Mmm...Was it because the last thing I did was shifted it back to eight years old? Did it just copy the last action from...What am I doing?! That doesn't matter right now! I need to change her back...but with that kind of damage, it won't be working anytime soon."

Unfortunately for him, his outburst got the girl stirring in her sleep. She slowly opened her eyes and flinched as they needed to adjust to the light. Moving herself into a sitting position, the girl found out she was holding something that practically forced her eyes open. The dazing jewel reflected the light in a truly magnificent way that really captivated her.

Tails stood frozen like a deer in headlights. He panicked and though that if he stayed still he would not attract any attention. From his perspective, it seemed like it was working as Rouge's eyes were glued to the Emerald. That was until his stomach growled from skipping breakfast and startled her. The bat girl rose to her feet and locked eyes with the yellow fox before screaming. To make things slightly worse for the both of them was that while the bat shrink, her attire had not. With the weighted breastplate threatening to undo everything, Kid Rouge screamed again as she grabbed it with her free hand to stop it from happening.

Tails turned his head away trying not to look, "Sorry, Rouge! I swear I didn't see anything." He was getting ready for direct kick or at the very least some verbal insults, but they never came. What he heard instead was her screaming...

"Who are you and why do you know my name?!"

"Huh?"

 **This conclude the first chapter of Rouge the Kid.**

 **Like I have said in the beginning, this is loosely based on the story I am making in 'Rouge the Lab Rat 2', I even used the same title. I will make the stories as clearly separate as I can, but if you want a sneak peek to explain the cliffhanger, heed this shadowly figure's advice...**

 **Transition to dark room lit by a single candle**

 **(*Deep breath*)**

 **Two...Two...Two...One...Two. Stray from the path at your own risk...**

 **Because, well...It's set up as a 13+, but other paths get to 18+ pretty quickly.**

 **Transition back**

 **...Yeah. Okay so please send comments about why you like, tolerate, or dislike this story. This is my first entry on this site and every little bit of constructive criticism helps. Thank you.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Should I try to include a list of conditions about what this story does and does not have? In relation to the Sonic universe and all that? ...Okay...**

 **This is based on the games more than anything else. Therefore I am not including characters from other sources like the Archie Comics. This is not because I don't like them, it just hard to capture someone's image and likeness when you're not familiar with them at all. The story doesn't have a specific timeline but does occur after Sonic Unleashed. Rouge's original age is 18 and Kid Rouge is, of course, 8, resulting in a loss of an even ten years. The entire story will span one 'Chaos Cycle', so it will end after the 'Final Chaos Control'. There would be OC anthros and humans, but they would be more like background characters as opposed to the main ones.**

 **I think that's it for right now...**

 **This is the part where I must state that I do not claim the rights to any characters or plot devices held by SEGA...You know...like the Emeralds...They should own the rights to the Emeralds, right?...That sounds right...I can't think of a reason why not.**

The bat stood in the middle of the metal capsule. She had no clue where she was, who the yellow fox was, or what clothes she was wearing. Apparently he knew who she was. Holding up the breastplate to keep on covering herself, her expression held surprise and intimidation but hid her fear. "Who the heck are you, creep?!"

Tails was baffled that Rouge could not remember him. It had to be a side effect of the malfunction, but he could not think of the reason why. "Rouge, please just calm down and I'm sure..."

"Calm down?! You want me to calm down?!" The bat went to kick him in the gut, but the oversized boots caused her to lose her balance and she fell face first onto the floor. Grunting in pain, she look at her attire and decided to make some changes. She kicked off the cumbersome boot, pulled off the gloves, and somehow managed to rip the metallic breastplate from the fabric supporting it without ruining the entire thing. When Rouge dusted herself off, Tails finally saw the true effect of the machine. The mature, curvy bat transformed into a petite girl. She was about as tall as him without to added height from the heels. Her hands, feet, and wings were proportionately smaller but not too noticeable. The hair on the back of her head shot down to the floor instead of curling up and outwards. Despite all this, he still can not believe that he is seeing her natural face without any makeup; her eyelids were the same color as her muzzle and body.

Rouge returned to the boy and grew irritated when she caught him staring. Before he could react, the transformed bat dug her toe into the fox's rib-cage and flung him across the room. As the boy genius slowly got up, Rouge grabbed the purple Chaos Emerald and sprinted out the front door. The little bit of fabric she had on was loose, but it was better than trying to escape in the huge boots.

Tails got to his feet and ran after her before he could lose sight of her. Looking back at her pursuer, Rouge gritted her teeth at his persistence. She knew what she could do to lose him. She extended her wings and jumped into the air. Feeling like she got the best of him, she turned towards and mockingly pulled her eyelid down with her tongue out. However, her jaw dropped when, of all things, the fox was flying too by quickly spinning his tails like helicopter blades. She was too preoccupied in kicking herself in the head for not seeing something as obvious as his fluffy tails when he managed to catch up and tackle her back to the ground.

The impact made by the two children hitting the ground kicked up a cloud of dirt. Both of them coughed and groaned in pain as the dust took its time to settle. With Tails' arms around Rouge binding her and his weight pinning her, her struggling proved to be useless.

Tails looked in the venerable bat's eyes with all of the authority he could gather. "Please, just stop for a second and listen to me!"

Rouge flinched but was not going to back down. "No way! Why should I listen to some kind of two tailed freak?!"

Something came loose in Tails' mind after hearing the insult. He was always kind to anyone who was his friend. Heck, he would even show courtesy and politeness to most of his enemies. But he was really defensive about his twin tails. There was no telling what he would do if they were insulted. His face scrunched and beared his teeth, showing that he was obviously pissed. It was at this point Rouge knew...she messed up.

In one fluid motion, Tails rose to his feet and chuck Rouge's entire body over his head. This got her beyond scared. She pictured in her mind getting slammed into the ground and being absolutely defenseless to the fox's attack. Fortunely for her, Tails was still much in control of himself. He would not do something to actually hurt her. He just needed her to cooperate; it seemed like the answer was aggression.

"I didn't kidnap you. I know just as much about this than you do. I just want to talk this through. Now, are you going to let me help you or not?!" Tails barked the question at the end to make his point.

Rouge physically trembled in his hands. "O-okay, yes sorry. Sheesh." Seeing no reason to continue this, he began to lower kid Rouge back to her feet. Before her toe touched the surface, unfortunately, she groans in intense pain which brought Tails to a halt. She quickly reaches one of her hands to her back and falls back into Tails' arms. "Hey, are you...?"

The girl pinched the boy's cheeks together to silence him. "Less talking, more...sss...helping."

-Back inside the Workshop-

The fall they took turned out to have bruise Rouge's left wing. Since then, it had been bandaged up and put on ice while Tails sorted out the machine's software. It was quiet in the room with only the clicking of the keyboard and beeps coming from the rebooting contraption.

Tails was absolutely confused about all of this. He was right to guess that it executed its last given command. What he truly does not understand is why did it change only Rouge. Why were her clothes unchanged. If they had change, what would it look like. It was mind boggling to him not knowing what to do. He had so many questions and no answers that his previous tests could provide.

Rouge sat in a chair, her hand going numb from holding the cold ice pack. In her mind, she saw herself as a frail little girl, incapable to do anything without assistance. Even in this point of her life, she usually got her way. This day, however, was already one of the worst. She looked at the yellow fox getting frustrated at the terminal of the machine that was still a mystery to her.

"We need to be clear on something. Are you absolutely sure that you can't remember anything?" Tails tried to see where he needed to start.

"I know a lot: my name, my birthday, and the fact that I should not be here!" She spat back as if he was calling her an idiot.

He rationalized that Rouge might have, to the best instance of the word, reverted back to the way she was as a child. It was more than just her body and attitude; it was her memories as well. "Then you definitely need to know this." He pointed towards the machine that transformed her. "That machine you woke up in changed your age overnight. You are supposed to be an adult, not somewhere around eight years old." Though she tried not to show it, that came as a shock to her.

"Wait, you're joking right? Age changing machines? I've seen helicopter tails today but that sounds made up." Rouge said skeptically. She then froze when she thought mentioning his tails would put him in a rage again.

"It's true! It really works!" He stood up the defend his achievement before excusing himself. "Anyway, I think that last night you broke it and now I don't feel safe putting you back in there. Then would be no telling what would happen. We should count ourselves lucky that it didn't do a Chaos Blast instead."

"Then just fix it, smart guy. Done and done, right?"

The fox shook his head. "No, not right. The damage your older self caused can't be fixed easily. I would need to take it apart which by itself can take a while. Plus I'd need to replace the glass, rewire some circuitry that got fried, and run more test to make sure I don't make any more mistakes."

Kid Rouge sighed in complete disinterest to what he was talking about. "Yada yada yada...So you're saying I'm really stuck like this."

"I'm afraid so." He bowed his head in a sign to beg for forgiveness.

Rouge sighed again in annoyance. At this point, the ice had melted and tossed aside. It was going to be mind numbing to have to wait. Then she started thinking about it. She was not in a hurry to grow up and knew an 'innocent' kid act could get away with almost anything. She always had a knack to take things right out from people's noses. Plus, if she is returned to normal, she could just pretend that she does not remember doing it. If not, then she gets a do-over. She saw it as a win-win. For the first time that day, Rouge started to smile. Looking again at the fabric, she made a mental note to make the first thing she takes would be a new outfit.

To something more immediate, the guilty-ridden boy across room might be beneficial to her. He would likely help her with anything, but a few pokes would not hurt either. "Okay, but answer this for me. How do I know you're telling the truth? What if you really had a crush on me but I was too old for you to be your girlfriend?" She made a kissy face expression at the end just to really get under his skin.

Judging by his reaction, it worked. His arms flung back, teeth started to grit, and face blushed cherry red. He was frozen in place as if his heart jumped out of his chest. "Wha-wha-wha...No! I swear I didn't do it! You broke into my machine to steal the Chaos Emerald!" Tails could not contain his composure and shout back at the girl.

Finally something familiar to Rouge came up. "Chaos Emerald? Wait...Was it that purple diamond thing?" Her eyes started glistening like the item she described.

Tails was relieved that the conversation shifted away from teasing. "Yeah, it uses chaos energy in order to work."

"I just thought they were something to blame for all the greedy people in the world." The irony flew right over her head. "That purple gem was really one of them?" She patted herself with her hands before looking inside the cloth covering most of her. Then she looked around herself, mostly at the floor and tables. "Yeah, I don't have it anymore."

"What?!"

...

-Outside - Landing Site-

The two rushed to the spot where they plummeted. The impact left a small mark on the ground, showing them they were in the right place. Both the fox and bat searched the whole area to no avail. In the patches of tall green grass they were unable to find a single hint of purple.

"Why didn't you pick it up if it's so important?" Rouge yelled to Tails. She took extra care in making sure the bandage on her wing would not become undone.

He shouted back without lifting his eyes from the ground. "I wasn't worried about it back then. I was only interested in taking you back with me."

Rouge can't resist pouncing on the poor choice of words. "Oh, I didn't know you're supposed to take sly foxs literally..." She cooed with a mischievous smile.

"Come on, this is serious! We need to find the Emerald right now." He persisted. His worried expression getting worst the more time went on.

Rouge stood up straight to face him. "I don't see the point anyway. Don't you need to fix that thing first?"

"He's not concerned about using it." The two kids turned their heads to followed the voice. Tails' face turned grim when he saw the worst case scenario. Floating in the air with his personal transport vehicle the 'Egg Mobile', the evil Eggman looked down at the two. Underneath his mustache laid a wide sinister grin. He stretched out his arm, revealing the purple Chaos Emerald.

"He's worried about me getting it."

 **Thank you for reading Chapter 2. Feel free to...*self promote self promote* No seriously, anything you do helps me a lot. With some support, maybe I can keep this up all the way to the end. (Aw man I really hope so...)**

 **This is truly where my FanFiction arc splits from the arc. This one has an adventurous plot while the other one is a surreal slice of life. Not going to lie, I have no intention to including Eggman in the other one as anything more than a background character.**

 **Speaking of background characters.**

 **Transition to dark room lit by a single candle**

 **...You mismatched so many different rules of the lore. It's just a giant big cluste...**

 **Quickly transition back**

 **WoahhhWatchitbackthere! There's a reason why this is not Rated M, don't make me change it...Yeah, he was not a one time thing.**

 **Fun Fact: As I am typing this, Chapter 1 wasn't even posted yet.**

 **So now work begins on Chapter 3.**


	3. Chapter 3

**I have been uploading this story on Friday nights, if you have been wondering. Why Friday? No reason...**

 **This is the part where I must state that I do not claim the rights to any characters held by SEGA...or was I only supposed to do that on the first chapter...? Aw...I intended to do every chapter anyway so who cares?**

The evil doctor blessed his luck. He launched a near full offensive and failed to secure his target. He was now holding the very same Emerald with no expense to his robotic forces. To think that it would be unguarded in an open field would have been crazy, but the doctor was already a crazy man.

Rouge looked at the frightened Tails with a sense of confusion. Eggman started the Eggman Empire eight years prior to the present. She naturally has no memory of who he is. As far as she could tell, he was just a weird oddball-shaped oddball. His reputation currently meant nothing to her. "Hey, creep! That thing you're holding belongs to us!"

Eggman eyes the girl yelling at him. Youngsters bad mouthing him was nothing new to Eggman. "Not anymore it doesn't. It's finders keepers in this world, little girl..." As he was talking down to the child, he stopped to get a closer look at her, which freaked her out a bit. "Wait, is my mustache covering my eyes again? You remind me a lot of..."

Before he could finish, he got shoved to the side by his yellow dopey assist-bot Cubot. "Wait! Wait! I know this one! Hmmm...She looks a lot like...Rogue!"

The red assist-bot Orbot pushed Eggman aside as well to get a good look. "It's actually 'Rouge', but it is a striking resemblance."

Eggman grabbed both of the nuisances and threw them back to where they were. "I was just about to get to that you simpletons! If a mastermind come across a revelation, it is not your place to interrupt. That's why you weren't supposed to accompany me on this trip."

Cubot looked lost, "Wait, you didn't invite us? That's the first I've heard of this."

Orbot was just as puzzled as his counterpart, "Indeed, you haven't discussed this with us. Why did you wait until we got to our destination before telling us?"

The evil doctor gave his creation a stern look. After a while, it softened to a frown and his mustache drooped. "...I don't know...Perhaps...perhaps, well, this is a toxic relationship. I scream at you, your emotional simulation makes you feel hurt. I...I think I'm experiencing the most amount of guilt and pity I have felt in a long time." Orbot did not believe it. Was the evil Dr. Eggman finally going through a breakthrough? He then placed his palm flat on the red robot's head, "And it all your fault!" He span Orbot head quickly until it fell off the rest of his body.

"Sir, my head only spin in place four times, not seven." His head rolled inside the Egg Mobile, unwillingly avoiding his separate robotic body from grabbing him.

Cubot came in for the assist but Orbot's body accidentally knocked his head out of Cubot's hands, out of the Egg Mobile, and onto the hard ground underneath. The red robot's eyes glared the two. Cubot alternated facing the head and the body. "Wait, which one am I supposed to be looking at?"

During the exchange, Rouge just looked at the boy. She did not say anything, but wore a face that asked, 'does this happen often?'. He only shrugged, there was not much he could do about that.

Eggman span back around, "Ahh! Now I've lost track...Oh, ahem, now what do we have here? That wouldn't happen to be the conniving thief, would it? Seems like there was a little accident." He singled out the yellow fox. "Listen boy, even if you learn the true secrets of Chaos Energy, your genius would still pale in comparison to mine." Returning his attention to Rouge, "Now I want to make the right reintroduction, ahem. You see, girl, I am notorious Dr Eggman, leader of the Eggman Empire. My..."

Tails beat him to the punch, "He wants to use the Emeralds to dominated the world."

"Not just the Emeralds," Cubot added, "He also needs rockets, lots of minions, tons of resources..."

Orbot's head rolled to face the kids. "But first he needs a plan. He's been on the fence lately on what to do next."

Rouge punted the spherical head back into the flying capsule reassembling Orbot in the process. "Ohh...Impressive aim..."

The girl was getting agitated, "Who cares about world domination? I need that beautiful gem to change back to normal!"

Eggman laughed, not caring at what she was yelling about. "Luckily for you, since you practically gave me this great treasure, I'll give you one in return. I do fancy myself a gentleman after all."

"That's one of the worst lies you ever told. You're not gentle in any way." Tails screamed, remembering to heinous things he did over the years.

Following Tails' words, the sky above him and Rouge began to get darker. They were able to both look up in time to dodge a massive red and white metal ball hitting the ground where they once stood. It wasted no time and began its transformation. The ball rumbled and hummed as the machine inside was revving up. Two big parts of the outer shell emerged while another section tipped it upward, bringing the object to a stand. Several holes appeared around the Eggman insignia with missiles lying in each one. The arms shot out with a menacing pair of hands. Finally, the head appeared with red digital eyes.

The doctor maneuvered over the huge arsenal. "Maybe you're right. "This 'EggGolf' is not what one would call 'gentle'."

...

"EggGolf?" Tails addressed the elephant in the room.

The doctor got a little flustered, "Well, look at all the holes in it! It looks just like golf ball!"

"That's just stupid." said Rouge.

"Told you no one would get it." Cubot boasted.

Eggman was fuming. "We'll sort this out later! We're returning to base! We got what we came for." The Egg Mobile rose up higher in the air before retreating over the horizon. Before it was even get out of view, the not so favorably-named EggGolf slammed its monstrous hands towards the two kids. Luckily, the robot had a tell, giving both of them a chance to evade.

Tails glared at the giant ball. From his initial speculation, it was a typical powerhouse with strong but limited range capacity. Intuition told him that a thing of that size would have difficulties moving. This, however, was not entirely true. Everything besides one of its hands withdrew back into its body and it began to spin. With its anchored hand as the pivoting point, the EggGolf rolled in a large circle while its teeter-like arm swept everything inside the area. Despite the surprise, the fox and bat dodged once more. Having missed, it converted back into the 'golem' form.

Tail's main concern was Rouge, who faced their metal opponent while taking a stance. He did not expect her to run away, but he wasn't sure she was capable enough to take it on. "Rouge, you should stay back. Eggman's machines are dangerous, except for those two other ones."

Rouge met Tails' eyes. They were different then the ones she showed when he caught her during the chase. They were filled with intent and devoid of fear. Now that she got her bearings, she was much more capable. "Fat chance. If he's the reason I get stuck in this body, I'll make sure he suffers. First him, then you!"

"It wasn't my fault!" The boy pleaded for her to remember that she did it to herself.

"Whatever. So, what do we do?" The girl returned to the EggGolf.

The genius worked his mind over finding a solution. "Eggman's designs usually have a weak point, but this one must have some really thick armor. It's not going to be easy enough to beat it into scrap."

While Tails was thinking, Rouge came up with her own solution, "If it's heavy, then if we get it into the water," she points over the edges of the cliff overlooking the sea, "then it would sink, right?"

Tails was a bit shocked by both the practicality and the simplicity of it. His idea was to destroy it would hers was to make it nonoperational. Be from a thief or not, that was crafty foresight. "Yeah, it should. If we can get it to spin again and unhook the anchor, the momentum would launch it. Only way to do that is to attack from above."

"Great, enough talking. I got this." Ambitious, Rouge closed in the distance to the EggGolf, provoking it to strike. The machine swung its long arms like whips, sweeping everywhere in front of it. Rouge switched her focus to dodging, ducking, and jumping over its attacks, complement her agility. Tails stood behind as Rouge distracted the enemy; he could not affect the metal ball nor convince Rouge to back away. Personally, he was still worried about its unknown artillery.

Rouge's eyes flashed when she saw the tell. The hands grabbed the ground a second time and missed its targets again. Retracting one arm, it began to spin in place. The bat jumped at the last possible second to ensure that it would build up speed. She took aim, intent on flinging the contraption over the horizon. Unfortunately, her body shut down in pain, causing her to fall towards the deadly circle. Meer inches away from certain doom, she stopped midair. Tails, after standing still for too long, managed to catch her and regained attitude to farther the distance.

Looking at Rouge, the yellow fox was concerned about what led to the mistake. "What happened?"

Rouge had to take a moment to groan and adjust to the pain. "I-I tried to fly...but my wing's still sore." She reached for her left wing, but found difficulties since Tails was blocking her way. On closer inspection, in fact, he accidentally caught her and was carrying her in bridal style. Rouge was no having this. "Seriously?! At a time like this?! Just because you saved my life doesn't mean you can get a hug or a kiss on the nose!" In the middle of the scolding, a missile got launched form the EggGolf, surprising Tails enough to lose his grip. Before she could fall far, Tails caught her again, now with both of them grabbing each others' wrist. The kid bat pouted having recognized it was her fault Tails lost his focus, "...Better...and thank you, I guess..."

Despite rolling at an incredibly fast rate, the EggGolf release a barrage of rockets at the flying fox. It was not easy for him to dodge while carrying Rouge and there were many close calls, but he managed. That was until some detonated in the air. Some of the shock-waves bounced him around while disappearing into a cloud of thick smoke. The robot then unleashed a special missile straight into the cloud. Tails only had a split second from emerging from the smoke and avoiding the projectile. This was not over as the rocket turned around and pursued them.

"It's chasing us!" Rouge screamed.

"Target-seeking?" Tails guessed. He sped up, but the missile was fast and started to close in. Looking down, he saw the ball robot continue to spin. This led to a risky idea. "Hey Rouge, I remember that you used to do a drill kick when you were high in the air. Do you know how to do it now?"

The soon-to-be thief looked up to see his face knowing he was going to propose something serious. ""Yeah, I was trying to use it on that thing. You're not thinking of dropping me are you?"

"Trust me, if we do this right, we will win." Even though he was convinced this was the only thing he could do, he paused to allow her to speak. When Rouge remained silent, Tails carried on with his plan. He flew higher into the air which, of course, was followed by the rocket. Quickly turning, he dodged the rocket one last time and was flying straight to the ground. With a last look at each other, both of them let go, Tails pulling up in the air, and Rouge spinning like a top. Going according to plan, the missile followed Rouge on her descent. Tails could only hope now that it would work.

Spinning was a hustle for Rouge. It was hard for her to keep a steady course to the metal hand with the world blurring underneath her. Being released from high up meant more time airborne but also more adrenaline. Facing the reality that this was all on her, she braced herself. If she was even a little off, the teeter would do a good impression of a lawn mower. In the last second, just out of reach, Rouge looked up at the missile threatening to explode on contact. She knew there were no do-overs.

Her feet slammed against the metal, crushing most of it to the point that it curled up like a snapping bear trap. The force even upset the dirt around her, leaving a sizable dent that one might mistake for a small crater. Her body was still experiencing fatigue from landing, but still had to get out of the way of the rocket. Another problem occured when her feet literally dug into the hand, making the retreat more time consuming. With doom looming over her head, she used the opposing force from the landing to spring into a back flip, roughing up her feet in the process. Curling herself into a ball and protecting her face, the missile hit the hand dead center, ending its flight with a bang. The fiery explosion did not touch Rouge, but the shock-wave knocked her back at an incredible speed. Should she hit anything, it would take a long time to recover.

Tails fought against the very air around him to get to her. Catching her was too dangerous; he needed redirect her momentum upward until gravity could take care of the rest. He got under her and pushed with his hands. Having flown for a while already, he was pushing himself to stay in the air. The beginning of this endeavor was the hardest part though. As they were slowing down, Tails did not need to make as much of an effort. Finally stopping, Tails lowered himself and Rouge back onto the land. Upon touchdown, they were greeted with the sound of something big crashing into the sea. The EggGolf had sank and did not resurface.

-The Next Day-

Rouge feet took a blow from the landing and suffered a couple of scrapes, but otherwise did not bother her too much. She did get another treatment from the first-aid kit though and was advised to stay off her feet. It was fine with her. Unlike before, this was a moment she was proud of. Plus, playing with the fox like a servant-boy was its own fun.

Any time not spend in tending to Rouge, Tails spend on striping the aging machine down. It was as he feared; everything was in such dismay that fixing it would be only marginally quicker than starting from scratch. Luckily the computer terminal record were still intact or this would have been a complete wash.

"How long do you think it's going to take to fix it?" Rouge called from where she was sitting.

"Pretty much as long as it took to build it." Tails rubbed the back of his head. "But without the Emerald, we can only get so far."

Rouge took a spoonful of ice cream to her lips, which hovered there until she finished her sentence. "Yeah, now that idiot doctor guy has it."

"Yeah, Orbot said he didn't have a plan yet though, which is rare for Eggman...Still, we only need one of the six remaining Emeralds to turn you back."

"Until then," Rouge switched her sitting position, "You're going to have to keep making it up to me. Letting me crash here, showering me with food, fulfilling my every need..."

"You can stay, but that spoiled talk isn't going to fly."

"If you insist...This is the closest you'll get to living with me." She winked at the end to send a chill down his spine.

"S-Stop doing that! Geez...Why was it a problem when we were flying and not now."

"Because I'm the one doing it."

"Don't make it sound like I did it on purpose!"

Rouge finished the rest of her ice cream and muttered, "EggGolf...Stupid name..."

Tails was silent for a moment before stating, "I guess we're lucky it got a water hazard."

An eerie silence filled the room. Rouge's showed no sign of amusement. "...You were waiting all day to say that, weren't you?"

"What's wrong with that?!"

 **And that was Chapter 3. Thank you for reading this far.**

 **At some level, I want to replicate certain ascepts we would expect from the Sonic series while still fulfilling the desires the readers might want. So we get both a flawed Eggman design and chemisty between Tails and Rouge.**

 **This concludes the 'arc' for the first Emerald. Next up, will we find the next one, or will something else arise?**


	4. Chapter 4

**This is the part where I must state that I do not claim the rights to any characters held by SEGA...But do I need to put it here? Can I have it in the author's note on the bottom? Hmm...**

Central City was always a prosperous city. One would argue about why this was, and to be fair, there were many factors. For one, it was the capital to the United Federation and the military presence could respond to any threat and serve the public trust. The population, as well, were predominantly good and positive. Despite being massively disproportionate in favor of humans, the relationship between them and the mobians was very beneficial. Another redeeming quality was the city's resilience. Perhaps from both the immediate action from forces like G.U.N. and the chemistry of the civilians, when the city gets hit hard, they bounce back and rebuild no matter the circumstance.

Whatever the case, it goes without question that the city has a symbol. A blue mirage moved through the buildings at a fast carefree pace. No one could make out to shape of it, but it was clear what, or who, was causing it. It zipped between the cars on the street and bounced from structure to structure, usually with a storm of people cheering.

Away from the crowds, the President sat at his desk facing the window. While he could not the star, he was aware what was going on. He always did this; it was expected of him. "If only everyone could be simple to deal with..." He frowned. He turned in his swivel chair to face his desk. A panel was open, revealing a hidden screen mounted in the wood with the message 'Connection Failure'.

For the past few days, he attempted to make contact with a top agent to assign them to a mission believed to be of the utmost importance. However, the infamous Rouge the Bat was not responding to anything. The President found it frustrating for one of his favored officials, reliable or not, to ignore his calls. He was pushing the limit waiting a few days for the woman to answer. He banged his fist on his desk, dialed another number, and began the task he knew he should have done much earlier.

As opposed to Rouge, his contact answered immediately, the Commander of G.U.N. Through the video phone, the Commander saluted the President. "Sir! G.U.N. Commander on the line."

"Commander, I take it you were also unable to get in touch with Rouge...?" He grabbed the folder with the confidential information concerning the proposed objective. "We have wasted considerable time. If this could be a threat to own nation security, we need an operative taking action now; I'll leave the decision up to you and your team. Since this is within the United Federation, I'll invoke my power to withhold any information that might destabilize this nation."

"Yes Sir!" The Commander spoke up, "If I may, what action is to be done regarding Rouge."

The President had pondered this while hoping for the bat woman to answer. This was not just a matter of a missing person, but an powerful individual. Her ability to gather intel always played in their favor, but was to be feared. Her mobian nature, along with training to complement it, made her a true combatant in dire situations, being able to destroy fortified manned mechs.

She was not actively serving on a mission, so the chances of capture were severely reduced. Being on G.U.N.'s payroll put her in a comfortable sense of financial stability and surplus, competing against it would be fool-hardy. Along with his understanding of her 'passions', he issued several pardons to her charges of grand theft. It would be unwise for her to defect as they were serving in her best interest.

"Commander, the initiative to locate the agent Rouge the Bat should be treated as high priority. Even in a best case scenario, she is to be held in custody and interrogated before resuming to her services. If she insists on rejecting orders or is seen operating with hostile company, she is to be stripped of her position, then you follow the appropriate procedure. Failure to pinpoint her location is unacceptable."

"Sir! I'll have Departments One and Seven on it immediately." The President nodded and dismissed the Commander; the screen went dark at the end of the call. The President faced towards the window again, thinking of many possible and dangerous conclusions. After twenty seconds, an object was seen in the air above him. Sonic the Hedgehog cleared over the capital building and posed to any onlookers. When he reached the ground, he returned to his trademark speed, disappearing as abruptly as he came. The President repeated, "If only everyone could be simple to deal with."

-G.U.N. Fortress - Department One-

One hour after the conversion, the Commander placed orders to the Captains of Departments One and Seven.

Department One, often called 'Owl Head' by the enlisted, was tasked with logging personal relationships for each human and mobian in their records as well as spotting any and all signs of corruption. Its job was to confirm the action done by any operatives were in the interest of G.U.N. and foresee any attempts of betrayal, defection, or compromise. They would maneuver troops around in stations or on the field to avoid running the risk of psychological trauma or reckless action upon witnessing someone individuals would be familiar with in a stressful position, such as being held hostage.

When the Captains of Department One received word from the Commander, some of the best available brought up everything foreseeable on Rouge. Among many screens were her initiation, every case she was on, how she contributed to that case, any interactions with people, and photographs of both those shown to the public and not. Studying over the material were the leading members of Department One, female human 'Jane Lane' and a male chinchilla mobian 'Charles Gray'.

"Figures," Lane started, "It's never a good sign when someone with elite skill volunteers out of the blue." The pictures of Rouge change in tune to reflect the analysis. "Not only that, but in less than one year, she was assigned by the President himself to uncover records from Project: Shadow."

Gray cycled through the images, "Getting involved with Robotnik was bound to get her involved with Sonic the Hedgehog. Besides their first encounter, she ran into him and his group numerous times, occasionally fighting but to a positive means. Other than them and G.U.N., she has no confirmed personal contacts in all other aspects of her life."

Jane continued, "And retiring from jewel hunting, and the benefits that go with it, at eighteen just does not seem plausible."

In the middle of the discussion, a report came in and Rouge's file automatically updated. The raid on Rouge's residence was finished with its first check and gave in-depth results. Forensics concluded: there was no forced entry, no signs of a struggle, many valuables left untouched, and the latest signs of activity were performed on the day the first Chaos Emerald was revealed. There were also no clear signs from her to raise alarm.

Gray's ears twitched. The information leaned towards Rouge being able bodied. "So whatever she did, she did it willingly."

"It can't be a consequence that she disappeared when the Emerald was revealed." Jane pointed out. She had the thought that if Rouge can retrieve the seven gems without relinquishing them, she would.

Gray faced the woman to keep her focus on the topic at hand. "That is for Department Seven to deal with. Our suspects are Team Sonic and Ivo Robotnik. We're lucky one party here is cooperative."

"So you're looking to just knock on their door and say, 'We're with G.U.N., where is our agent?' Even if they're heroes, we can't just go on their word alone."

Gray did not take the mocking well, but held firm. "That was not my intention. If we prove ourselves to them that sharing that info with us would be mutually beneficial, they'll do it with no other questions asked. If they are unaware, then they are a capable bunch with an extra set of eyes. Lastly, if she is with Robotnik, we might need to rely on their help anyways."

Lane's eyebrow twitched in annoyance. "And what if they hold something back? According to protocol, since you just classified the entire team as suspects, any reluctance pass the first warning will get them arrested. Remember when Sonic was apprehended due to mistaken identity? He tried to escape from the city, damage our bots and drones along the way. Do you want that to happen again? You are putting too much trust in them hoping they're are just going to comply."

Charles Gray closed his eyes and inhaled. He kept his composure in check to maintain the image of a Captain as opposed to hopeful thinker. "I've been with Department One for some time. We spend our time studying people, and for years, I've seen him. Not just a public image; just him..."

Jane looked towards the ground in defeat, "Yes, I know. But still, we should increase surveillance. It'll be better for them."

Both Captains wanted the same thing.

Lane stated, "They don't know what this one woman could do, do they?"

Gray sighed, "We're sacrificing time for them. What's wrong with us?"

-Department Seven-

Department Seven, or the Seekers, were dedicated in all arts of retrieval. The department Rogue was enrolled in, they branched out from ruin excavators to underwater reclaimers to infiltrators. Their main priorities, especially recently, were the Chaos Emeralds. In fact, it was Department Seven that recovered three Emeralds before the reemergence of Space Colony ARK and the Eclipse Cannon.

The heads of the Seekers were already in attendance upon locating a possible second Emerald when they got the order from the Commander. The female panda mobian 'Lisa' stared at screen as the male human 'Joseph Winson' sorted through the wording the Commander sent.

"Rouge has gone AWOL, huh?" Lisa said to summarize the situation.

Winson muttered, "Probably...She's ignoring all calls. Apparently they got someone else to fill in the spot to the special mission. Now we're supposed to find her."

Lisa started contemplating, "She's tough, so she's going to be fine. Maybe she's setting herself up for something big."

"If she keeps this up, the only thing she's getting set up for is arrest for treason." The man exclaimed. "She of all people knows this. Rouge probably thinks that if she 'saves the world' again, all would be forgiven."

Lisa scoffed at that. "As if. We both know what everyone is thinking. 'She's after the Emeralds.'"

"Probably out there getting her hands dirty." Winson added.

"Whatever the case, our goal pretty much stays the same, right?" The mobian questioned.

"Yeah, probably..."

"Stop saying probably. It annoys me."

"Sorry."

They returned to their prior topic regarding the Emeralds. On screen were all seven gems set up in a heptagonal shape. The purple one specifically was highlighted.

"Remembering what happened last week," Winson started off, "a group of private prospectors thirty minutes away from Central City told news networks of their find. Before they got the interview, Eggman attacked with a small army."

"Department Two said Eggman has tapped into their phones. He knew as soon as they did." Lisa scoffed again in distaste. "He was there when they arrived just to make a show out of it."

"But get the Emerald, he did not." Winson reminded her to stop her from getting too upset. "Sonic and Tails were able to scrap most of his forces. After clearing the threat, the prospectors, either because they were thankful for their lives and safety or starstrucked, gave the Emerald to the pilot of the Tornado." An image blinked beside the purple Emerald showing Sonic's logo.

"Weird they didn't hand it to the hedgehog..."

"Anyway, with the obvious exception of Knuckles the Echidna guarding Angel Island, Team Sonic has been within the area of Capital City."

An urgent alert appeared on the screen, catching the two off-guard.

"Can't be...Department One can't have a statement up already." Lisa was a little astounded.

"Probably...No it's from Department Two. They had something in the works and it just got cleared."

The unspoken rule between Lisa the Panda and Joseph Winson was that Winson reads as Lisa finds it intolerable to read long passages. Winson read the message before opening the linked information. Lisa's face showed suspension as Winson was tongue-tied. A image popped up, showing two objects hovering the sea. The bigger of the two sported Eggman's insignia.

Winson broke his silence, "This was from four days ago."

"What?!" Lisa shouted. "Eggman launched an attack four days ago and we are only hearing this now?"

Winson opened and positioned all images onto the screen. Besides the initial one, only one image was not corrupted to some degree. "That's what took them so long."

Lisa observed the screen piecing it together, "Are they in chronological order?" The man nodded. "The big thing disappeared in just the second picture, but that's also where the corruption starts."

He stumbled trying to start the sentence. "Even now, they can't confirm what that thing was. But according to them these pictures were taken by local CCTVs."

"Then why are those two the only ones that are fine?"

He highlighted the second cleared image, "They were all taken from CCTVs, but this one was from a camera G.U.N. installed."

This was the point that Lisa realized it. The only significant difference between the cameras was the ability to tolerate interference from Chaos Emeralds. When they are near insecure or incompatible machines, the Emerald could cause them to go haywire. G.U.N. has the technology to withstand it, but many common places do not.

Lisa gritted her teeth seeing the whole picture. "Eggman has the purple Emerald." Winson frowned as he took to the keyboard to change the Sonic logo to Eggman's.

-Tail's Workshop-

Sonic and Amy got a request to come to his workshop. Amy had nothing to do that day and accepted without much thought. Sonic needed just as much persuading. Since he got scolded by presidential officials telling him the sky above the White House was restricted air-space, his day was cut short.

With both hedgehogs at the door, Amy gently knocked. Tails answered with hesitation and they shared greetings. Sonic and Amy both thought that Tails was acting a bit weird until he motioned them to come inside. Once in the living room, they immediately got shocked, with Sonic wincing and Amy covering her mouth.

They saw the girl with a striking resemblance to the jewel thief laying down on the couch. They were unsure but it was unshakeable. She was wearing white boots that were too similar to be a coincidence. Along with a new white and pink gilet vest and khaki shorts supported by a heart buckled belt, it was like they were looking at someone entirely different.

The girl looked up at the two visitors, feeling uncomfortable about them staring at her. "What?"

 **Dimly lit room**

 ***Groans* Wait...what...Damn it! He did an epilogue without me!**

 **What did he write when I was asleep?**

 **...Hmm...Not bad, but don't the President and Commander have actual names? And the Captains characters seem like they're going to play big roles.**

 **Quick transition out**

 **Not really, they are pretty much painting the image of what G.U.N.'s doing behind the scenes.**

 **I'll like to self promote here for a little bit...Thank you for reading.**


	5. Chapter 5

Sonic and Amy were speechless. Amy was frozen in place as the bat just lounged on the couch. Sonic's mouth was agape as he looked at Tails, waiting for him to respond. Tails tilted his head down and release an extended sigh. This was not going to be easy.

"What's going on? You guys are kinda freaking me out." Rouge asked, feeling as uneasy when Eggman did it.

Amy finally moved her hand away from her face to speak. "Sorry, but you're kind of freaking us out, too."

Sonic asked his fox friend, "Tails, who exactly is that?"

"She is Rouge." He could only gesture his hand into her direction.

"Phew...I thought you were going to say she was Rouge's sister...Wait, huh?!" Sonic was calm for only a few seconds before becoming even more confused. He was having difficulty processing the woman as this young girl.

"Really, Sonic?" Amy looked at him with a frown of disappointment.

"That would make more sense, wouldn't it? Anyway, what happened here?"

Tails filled them in about his experiment, the accident, and the battle against the EggGolf. They did not exactly took the news about the Emerald lightly, but they were already preoccupied with the bat.

"Four days?!" Amy's voice started to rise, "Why did you wait four days to tell us?"

Tails was not really proud of the reason. "Well...She said...err...demanded that I get some clothes for her before she would do anything and we needed to wait for her feet to heal."

Amy's left eye twitched a little after hearing this. "What did she need new clothes for?" She said in a silent tone which scared Tails.

"Woah! Hang on a second, Amy." Sonic jumped in to save the day. "Look, she's shorter and not as grown up than she used to be. Her old clothes were probably just too big."

Rouge went to Tails' defense as well, but not quite for the same reason. She grabbed one of her old boots up off the floor. "They covered my knees. Makes it hard to move if it doesn't bend."

Amy took a deep breath. It was obvious, but her mind thought of the worst for a second. "Sorry." She was quiet for a moment, but her eyes trail to the side while the gears in her mind were grinding. "But...but maybe it would be better if she stayed with me instead."

Rouge went wide-eyed and coughed on her saliva. She just met this woman five minutes ago and she recommended something unusual. Rouge was not going to let this woman call the shots. That was what she was supposed to do with Tails. "Hold on! Why should I stay with you, huh?"

Before Amy could respond, Sonic and Tails simultaneously backed up as far as they can. They both foresaw a catfight coming. Both of the girls were scary alone when tipped off, but putting them against each other was not going to be fun.

Amy was thinking with her best intentions with the invitation. Rouge's snippy attitude, however, turned her sour. "I thought you'd appreciate using my guest room. You have been sleeping on a couch half a week, maybe it would be better if you actually slept in a bed for once."

"I haven't complained about where I sleep. Just because I'm a kid now doesn't mean you could do whatever you want." She struck out her tongue without caring if it would hurt her case.

"Well if you can't remember how to live for yourself, then I can!" Amy growled.

"Please! I can live by myself."

While the two girls were going at it, the guys just looked on. Eventually they would need to jump in, but timing was everything. Tails leaned towards the blue hedgehog, his head speaking through his teeth. "Do we stop them if Amy gets her hammer?"

Sonic shook his head, "It'll already be too late by then."

"Okay, but how come Amy's still talking like she wants Rouge to stay with her while they're screaming?" It made sense to Tails for Amy to just say 'never mind'.

"Buddy, sometimes girls fight to fight, or something. Both of them want to get the last word in, and the other one is stopping them. That, or Rouge is doing it because she's in the rebellious phase of her life again..." Amy and Rouge looked the guys who tensed up. They knew not to take sides here and tried to change the subject. "So, how much longer until this 'aging machine' is fixed." Sonic asked, teeth chattering.

"M-maybe a few days. Should be ready by the time another Emerald is found." Tails guessed. "Thanks to recycling the metal plates and having already fine toned the blueprints, I've shaved a lot of time on reconstruction."

"Alright then, it's just same old, same old then." Sonic flashed his signature grin. "After we fixed this little problem, then we get back down to our usual business."

Rouge stood up, "Yeah, and I want it to be soon. I'm tired of sitting on my butt all day."

Tails was somewhat surprised by Rouge's statement. "I didn't know you were in a hurry." Any ideas of relating to her growing up to ignore Amy were avoided.

The bat shook her head at the fox for misunderstanding. "No, no. I want to get my hands on one of those beautiful gems again. You can say they're finders-keepers all you want, but they got my name written on them." She had to look in her eyes again.

"Wait, so you want them more than than you want to go back to normal?" Amy asked, not really expecting anything less.

"Of course." Rouge shrugged. "Besides, if I find one, I can keep it for myself after transforming, right? You do owe it to me." She eyes Tails with silent persuasion.

"Are you sure? I mean...you did get yourself into this." Sonic stated while picking at his ear. "Anyway, is the tracker ready yet? Might as well comb some places while I still got some of the heat from earlier today."

"It is." Tails pointed to the small handheld computer by the front door. Rouge heard everything she needed to hear. In the next possible chance, she got up and walk to avoid suspension. After grabbing the tracker, she walked out of the door and started to fiddle with it. While she was doing this, she didn't hear one of Tails' important notes. "But they could be still be anywhere. I've scanned the area, and there are none closer than where the first one was found."

"It's not unusual, we'd be lucky if they are all on this continent." Amy thought aloud.

"We could stop storm EggHead's place and just take it back. If we go early, we could catch him off-guard." The blue hero suggested.

"He might or might not have a plan by now. Either way, the bulk of his forces would be there." Tails reasoned. "Even if we do anything to him, it'd be better to fix the problem we already have."

The three were quiet expecting the fourth voice to say something. When it never came, Amy was the first to notice. "Huh? Hey! She's gone!"

Sonic scanned the room before seeing the door, "She took the tracker and left on her own. She couldn't have gone far." With that, Sonic ran outside, not catching any sight of her. "What's up? She's only been gone for a minute." He began to dash in a random direction to survey the land for her.

Overlooking the area, a G.U.N. operative just arrived on scene to set up personnel surveillance. "Field Agent #XX reporting." He spoke to comms through his ear piece, "I arrived to the target location without noticeable detection. Sonic the Hedgehog has been spotted and seen heading north away from Central City."

The comms took note on the other end of the line before replying, "Roger. Maintain your position."

Agent #XX returned to his post until he responded back to comms, "And don't call me Roger. #XX feels like I've won a personal lottery."

"Take it seriously, Agent." Comms spoke sternly to remind the agent to not speak freely.

-Inside-

Amy looked to Tails as Sonic left, "Tails, don't even bother trying to chase them."

"Wait, why not?"

"If Sonic can't catch her for whatever reason, where would she go?" Amy bought up a good point. Any place Rouge would think to go would be ten years out of date. For a matter of convenience, she would most lately return if she found an Emerald or not.

"But if anything happens, it's going to be on me." He looked down in solemn.

Amy knew Tails and how he felt involved in what happened. He saw himself responsible for the machine's malfunction and caring for her in the meantime. "You being too hard on yourself. I know you're trying to help, but this is not your fault. You're a good friend, doing everything the right way since then, but you can't place it all on your shoulders."

Tails heard what Amy was saying. "I get it, but I am responsible. I am the only one who is able to change her back. And since it was an accident, I don't know if I can get it right right off the bat."

This, Amy could not deny. She wasn't exactly sure how to encourage him or if she should right then. Her vision lazed across the room where it locked on the shrub that the first tests focused on. She can't really say much not, understanding the experiments information, but she was confident in Tails.

A small tablet on the table started to sound an alert.

Tails looked at it in slight confusion. "A video call?"

"Probably Sonic telling us he found her." Amy reasoned.

Tails shrugged, accepting to possibility and connected to his caller.

-Rigid Hillside - 70 Miles Away from Central City-

Rigid Hillside was home to a popular museum and nature-walk which served as successful tourist attractions. Due to an unusual split seperating forest from rocky terrain, many people stop by for pictures or to just take in the scenery.

Taking a guided tour on the nature walk, the mother-daughter duo of Vanilla and Cream, along with their friend chao Cheese, were enjoying their little vacation. Cream and Cheese were fascinated with how big and lush the trees were. Vanilla was happy that they were doing something different for a change.

"Now if we look to our right towards the mountainside," the guide directed, "you can see a natural chao garden under the foliage." As was mentioned, a pool with incredibly clear water and a waterfall sat a small distance away, sprinkled with small chao here and there. The crowd gasped in amazement, pulling out cameras and phones to snap pictures.

"Chao chao!" Cheese flew forward to meet the other chao.

"Woah! Hold it little guy!" The guide brought Cheese to a halt. "Sorry, but that is a wild chao garden. We can't go any closer. That's a rule."

Cream looked to her saddened friend. "It's okay Chesse, maybe we'll see another one soon."

"Chao chao..."

"...Aw...Aw man..." One park-goer was looking intensely at his phone, getting frustrated. "Damn it!"

The outburst made the group jump a little. Vanilla approached the young man while his back was still turned away. "Excuse me, young man. I believe you need to watch your language." She said with the motherly equivalent of swearing someone off.

The man turned with a hint of anger, which dissipated when he saw her daughter close to her. "S-sorry, that was a bit uncalled for, but my phone's not working right. I'm trying to take a good picture of the water, but it keeps getting fuzzy."

Another person chimed into the conversion, "Me too, and mine is brand new. Next generation indeed..."

This persisted with everyone there. Cheese tugged on Cream's ear until he got her attention. When she turned to face him, he pointed to the base of the waterfall. Cream could barely make out a yellow glare through the running water.

-Tails' Workshop-

"There's a Chaos Emerald there?!" Tails shouted in disbelief.

"Yes, or at least I think there is. The park warden won't let us any closer to the garden." Vanilla stood quite a distant away from her previous spot.

Tails breathed a sigh of relief. "Well that makes things easy."

"Everyone here wants to know if it's really there, but they not saying anything. Maybe you can talk with the warden." Cream told Tails through the screen.

"Alright, count on me. I'll be there soon." The line cut out and Tails was exceptional giddy with excitement. "There is another Emerald. Yeahhhh...Oh man."

Amy was concerned about the gradual decline of Tails' voice. "What's wrong."

"Sonic's not back yet. If we leave, then we won't be able to help him out with Rouge."

Amy grinned as if Tails forgot who he was talking about. "Come on. It's Sonic. He'll be fine. Besides, if he can't handle her, how can he stand a chance with me."

There was no need to discuss it any further, or else Amy might enter a monologue about Sonic again.

Outside, Field Agent #XX witnessed the two mobians board the Tornado. During liftoff, he relayed information back to G.U.N. Fortress. "Reporting movement of Miles Prower and Amy Rose. They are going west by plane."

"West?"

"Affirmative."

"According to recent social media posts, there is a possible Chaos Emerald sighting in Rigid Hillside Museum and Park."

"Nothing too out of the ordinary with that then. Also there is high possibility of the place being devoid of people. Has Department Two issued a warrant to search the workshop?"

"Negative, our field agent has not secure ample information."

Agent #XX paused for a moment, "I'm the field agent."

"Roger. Stay at your post until you are dismissed."

"Copy that. Staying 'til dismissal." Agent returned his gaze to the workshop and quietly muttered, "Maybe Rogers should take up cooking, not the military..."

 **This is the part where I must state that I do not claim the rights to any characters held by SEGA.**

 ***Shakes head* Predictable**

 **I know. Well guys, not going to spoil anything, but I am personally excited for the next two chapters. Overlapping actions, ho!**

 **You're going to procrastinate on those, aren't you?**

 **Absolutely. If school taught anything past 9th grade, it's that nobody really cares about your work ethic. You could write only a fourth of a chapter in six days, then finish the rest the night prior. As long as you have the final product, you're good to go.**

 **...That's on you.**

 **I know...**


	6. Chapter 6

In the foothills behind the workshop, kicked up dirt floated off of the ground as the speedy hedgehog searched for the child escapee. "Seriously?! Where is she?" He continued his search somewhat frantically. He wouldn't have guessed that the girl would be elusive enough for his speed to not catch her. "She can fly, so up maybe?" Sonic span around, keeping his pace as he ran backwards. With his hand blocking the sunlight, he scanned the sky to find no sign of her. "Aw man...Could she have went towards the city?"

Reorienting himself to run normally again, he caught sight of the cliff overlooking the sea. He forced his heels onto the earth to slow himself down. Stopping on the edge, he spotted the water far beneath his toes. He was desperately twirling his arms in circles to move his center of balance behind him. Falling to the ground at his feet, the hydrophobic hedgehog breathed a sigh of relief. "Man, that was too close..."

Picking himself back up, he looked up to eye a huge floating landmass. "Angel Island? I already went this far?" Sonic scratched the back of his head. "No way she got this far. I better start backtracking." Sonic winded himself up to start running at top speeds again. However, a thought appear in his mind that kept him still. "Hang on...If she's following a tracker, then wouldn't it...?"

Sonic look over the entire island and frowned. There was nothing to connect Angel Island to the continent. There were a few inland mountains that he could run and jump from, but missing would result in a similar case to the one he just avoided. With one final thought, he checked to landscape for any convenient red springs to no avail.

"Looks like we gonna have to fly." He raced back to Tails' place to fetch a trip on the Tornado. Unfortunately, when he arrived, it was gone along with Tails and Amy. This left Sonic a little dumbfounded. He didn't see them flying overhead during the pursuit. He was asking the obvious questions of 'Where did they go?' and 'What am I supposed to do now?'.

-Angel Island-

The land suspended in the sky was the same as the mainland except for a lack of a shore. Thick green trees stretched across the island with grey and brown mountains perking over the canopy. On top of the floating island laid the ruins of an ancient civilization. Stone paths led to a center platform housing a giant green gem.

The shrine's lone guardian stood in the plaza, staring down a massive pile of rocks and boulders. The echidna attached a pair of shovel claws to his fists than dropped himself into a battle stance. "All right, here goes..." With one last breath of air, he charged into the pile, reducing it to rubble.

In the forest bordering the shrine, a young bat girl descended into the trees. She landed on a sturdy looking branch before turning back to massage her left wing. "Looks like you're back in business." She smiled seeing that it was no longer a dead weight. "Now let's see...This thing says that there is a Emerald ahead. Figures that a floating island would have some kind of treasure on it."

She brushed through the leaves of the trees to get a clear view of her target. She was not prepared to see a huge jewel that was about as tall as she was just sitting in the open. She was beyond astonished by the light reflecting off of it, mouth agape like she just saw the most beautiful thing in the world. That was until a stream of dust got into her eyes and mouth. Spitting and being annoyed, she spotted the culprit digging into stationary rocks, filling the air with dirt. There was someone already there, but she saw that they were busy and not paying attention.

The bat leaped down from the branch to begin her approach of the green treasure. Once she begin to breach the clearing, she stepped on a fallen branch, audibly breaking it. After the sound, the intense bashing of rocks came to a stop. Rouge quickly dodged and hid behind a tree. She did not believe that they would have heard it, but it was too much of a coincidence. The dust settled to reveal Knuckles standing tall, looking like a martial artist pondering the nature around him. He looked ready for a fight.

Knuckles looked at his fists, more specifically the shovel claws. "They're still dull...Maybe I shouldn't sharpen them by driving them into stones." Knuckles' pause came due to a sudden realization.

The girl saw that while the brute had stopped, he still wasn't facing her or the Emerald. She did not see any trouble in sneaking up to it for a faster swipe later. There was the unseen problem in the crushed rock particles in the air though. As she emerged, a gust of wind blew excess dirt and dust right in her face. Unexpecting it, she got the full force of it, building up the pressure to either sneeze or cough. Not wanting to be heard, she covered her face with her hands, holding her breath. The time spent doing this was not easy as her eyes started to water. Her will seemed to win in the end however as the sensation subsided. She avoided making a sound, just as she intended.

"Hey!"

Rouge saw Knuckles looking directly at her. In her attempt to remain silent, she stopped moving, exposing her location in the open.

"What do you think you're doing here?!" Knuckles yell at her.

With her position already compromised, she went straight into it. "Sorry,but you got something that I really need."

Knuckles reflexively look at the Master Emerald, drawing the connection. "No way! It's my job to protect it, even from pesky kids like you!"

She expect him to be adamant, but him calling her a kid gave her an idea. She tilted her head to the ground and pouted her bottom lip, feigning the image of an innocent child. "But I really need it..." she said with a hushed voice. Knuckles was a little bit taken aback by this change in behavior, but not enough for Rouge's taste. She placed her hands together as she made a soft plea, "Please, it's really important that I get that Chaos Emerald." Dignity was just a small price to get what she wanted.

Knuckles completely fell for the display. With the girl pleading, his expression softened to the point where he was a little embarrassed. He was not going to surrender the Emerald, but he was not going raise a fist to her either. "Hey, hold on. Just to be clear, that's the Master Emerald, not a Chaos Emerald. Second, I can't just give it to whoever ask for it. It's very powerful and should never leave my sight."

The idiot was more cooperative but still wasn't budging. He was talking though, pretty open to spilling some beans. "Master Emerald? What's the difference?"

"It pretty much controls and watches over the Chaos Emeralds. If someone uses them to do something wrong, the Master Emerald could stop them."

This was interesting. She was looking for another Chaos Emerald, but way she heard it, the Master Emerald could reverse what happened to her. "Then I still need it."

"Why?" Knuckles asked with his arms crossed. Rouge was stumped, she could not tell him the true reason. It was the only thing giving her leverage. "You know what, forget it. The answer's still no."

"Are you sure?" She made one final attempt to convince him. When Knuckles just stood there like a rock, Rouge knew it was time to drop the act. The bat went on the offensive and drilled her toe towards the echidna. The red one detected the move and parried it to the side. Rouge was spinning on her pivoting leg, leaving her open to a counter attack. She reacted quickly, leaping into the air, narrowly dodge the punch. With an acrobatic flip, she stuck the landing facing her opponent. "Hang on, are you really trying to hit a girl?"

"What?! Doesn't matter who you are if you're a no good thief. Besides, I already hit a girl before. She was a annoying jewel hunter who just wouldn't stop messing with me." Neither of them knew that that woman was currently facing off against him. Knuckles charged forward with a fist in the air, missing the girl yet again. He could keep pressing her, but got sidetracked by the shovel claws still attached to his fist. Only wishing to drive the intruder away, they fell to the ground before they would do any real damage.

In the last moment of Knuckles disarming himself, Rouge rushed in with an aerial barrage of kicks in quick succession. Most blows were at face level to Knuckles causing him shield his head. Mobian hands and feet were already proportionately big compared to their overall bodies, but Rouge was going up against things the size of massive boxing gloves. Seeing that she was getting nowhere, she stamped his head and went straight for the Master Emerald. Knuckles was shaken, but not stirred. He dashed mad to cut her off before getting in arms reach of it. Managing to get in front of her, he connected a punch that grounded Rouge. She rolled across her entire body in the grass, but was getting exhausted.

"Let me make this clear." Knuckles said looking at the crouching bat, "This place and the Emerald are under my protection. Now leave because you're not going to get it."

Rouge could not fool herself; she was not going to win this fight. She thought that if she was her older self, maybe she would have had what it would take. The guy was an idiot, but he stopped her from getting close. Plus, he was most likely too alert to fall for another act. But, there was probably one more way to trick him. Picking herself up, she looked at him with the look of defeat plastered on her face. "Okay, fine. sheesh...I'm going."

Knuckles nodded and saw Rouge started walking. He rolled his neck, shoulders, and back to loosen up after the battle. With a relaxed sigh, he noticed that for walking and not running or flying away, she disappeared pretty quickly. In truth, she walked past him in the direction of the gem and he was none the wiser. Hearing the sound of her ascending the stairs to the shrine, he turned to see that he got duped again. "You brat!"

Just a few large steps away from the Master Emerald, Rouge looked back to the angry Knuckles. Grabbing the gem was out of the question, but she wanted it to reverse the transformation the machine did to her. She did not know how it would work, but she was about to make a break for it. Knuckles kicked off the ground and began to glide up the steps. With so little space left between them, a blue image shot from out of nowhere, causing both of them to freeze.

Sonic's landing position showed that he was recovering from one of his midair stomps. Looking back in the direction of the mainland, he muttered, "Heh, that jump was a lot easier than I expected." Turning his attention to the echinad and bat, he continued "Huh, looks like finding her here was just as easy."

Knuckles stepped forward to confront the hedgehog. "Sonic, what are you doing here?! I am a little busy trying to throw this kid off the island!"

Sonic waved his hands in disapproval. "Woah, woah! Hang on, Knucks. Look. Doesn't she reminded you of anyone one?"

Knuckles took another intense look at the child. He did not realize it before, but there were the similarities. Sonic and Rouge could figuratively see the gears grinding in his head. He held the same face until the realization left him shocked. "Wait?! You're that BatGirl's kid?! Wait?! She has a kid?!"

Rouge just facepalmed as Sonic commented, "And Amy thought the sister comparison was bad. No, no. This is that 'BatGirl'. There was an accident and now she's really young."

This did not really clear the light for Knuckles anymore than it already did. "So, if she's here, where is the other one?"

"Other what?" Rouge asked the clueless guardian.

"Well if she time-traveled here, where is the one from our time?"

"No, she is the one from our time."

"Then the other one was from the future this whole time?!"

Sonic was getting annoyed trying to keep him up to speed. "No, there is one Rouge. This one." he gestured with his hands. "There was no time-traveling, there's not going to be any paradoxes, she's just young and doesn't remember anything."

"Ah! Just stop okay? I don't need to know everything." Knuckles placed his hands over his ears to drown out the sound of Sonic's voice.

With the guys playing a funny man-straight man routine, Rouge took the opportunity to get closer to the Master Emerald. Seeing it up close was more captivating than when she saw it earlier. Time was not on her side however, so she had to make her move. She figured that she might have to touch it in order for it to work, like a genie's lamp or something. She stroked the gem, hoping it would know what she wanted. Instead, the moment the she made contact with it, her hand began to glow a faint purple color that crept up her arm, then everywhere else.

"Shadow shows up and everyone thinks he's me. You see someone who's almost exactly the same and think it's a different person. Didn't think I'd say this, but G.U.N. needs more people like you in it." Sonic taunted Knuckles before a sound interrupted him. Behind him, Rouge collapsed beside the Master Emerald, eyes closed with a soft purple haze hovering over her forehead. "Hey! What happened?!"

 **This part of the text is reserved for a disclaimer. The author/writer of this piece does not own the characters held by SEGA.**

 **You know, putting that at the bottom was only going to be a one time thing, but I like only having one author notes section.**

 **You were running out of material to write on the top of the page.**

 **Yeah. So now a mock sentence piece for 'legal reasons' is your biggest competition.**

 **Are you proud of yourself for that?**

 **...Yeah, pretty much. Anyway leave a comment if you'd like to. On that topic I have read all...five of them. Pretty sure one guest wrote the bulk of them, if so, good on ya. And don't worry, his part is coming up. I want to make sure that the introduction would be flawless.**


	7. Chapter 7

"No!" Tails' screamed from the pilot's seat. With Amy in the passenger's seat, they were on their way to Rigid Hillside to meet with Cream and Vanilla and talk to the warren about the Chaos Emerald. Tails started off the flight be anxious about getting it, but now he wanted Amy to stop asking questions. "I swear I didn't do it on purpose. Besides, I can't contact her. Whenever we see Rouge, it always happens randomly."

Amy leaned back against her seat and saw the trees, hills, and clouds move pass them. She believed Tails of course, but a few things still did not sit right with her. "Okay, but why would you need a machine that changes someone's age?"

Tails stumbled over his words. "I-I was trying to find out more about Chaos Energy's relation to time. There was not much of an actual plan. I was just going to study it from where the results left off."

Amy went back to looking at the back of Tails' seat, "Well were you able to really learn anything from it? And try to keep it comprehensible."

The fox's eyes trailed off in remembering the short time with the chamber. "Well, instead of having it effect something by shaving off or adding a few months or years, I proved that Chaos Energy can send something to a set time in its life cycle."

Amy twiddled her thumbs in contemplation. "So instead of just turning time backwards on them, it's like putting them at a saved point in their life?"

"Pretty much. When we return Rouge to her right age, it should send her back to the Rouge that helped us other than if she was going to age from that point today." Tails spotted the split between tree and rock in the distance. He descended the Tornado closer to the ground to prep for landing. Then a sudden realization hit him, causing his face to droop. "The only other problem is, she never told us her age..."

"What?! You're kidding, right?!"

-Rigid Hillside-

Despite the news floating around, the museum remained open. Of course, all of the attraction came from the nature walk, which was closed off for the time being. Nearly everyone one in attendance wanted to see the chao garden, including the Rabbit family. Since the warren was still not hearing anyone out, they hope that a visit from some of the famous heroes would resolve this on the best of terms.

With the Rabbits sitting away from the crowd hording at the entrance to the forest, they perked up when they heard the sound of jet plane's engine. Everyone smiled while Cream bounced to a stand. Then a sudden uproar boomed that almost caused her to topple over. The mass of people sifted their attention to the blue plane and stormed to the road in front of the museum. Before it even reached the ground, a strobe of camera flashes flickered.

Amy and Tails saw the crowd of people during the deceleration of the landing. "Well, looks like we are going to have an audience." Amy said knowing everyone's eyes would be glued to them.

"Yeah. Too bad Sonic's not here. He always thrives on this kind of attention." Tails joked.

The moment they stepped out, they got bombarded with questions and admiration. Not having Sonic around wasn't much of a problem as everyone tried to relate with the mobian heroes.

"Tails! I saw you disabled the nuke in the town that one time! Thanks of saving our lives, man!"

"Amy, I know Sonic's going to be yours someday. Don't give up, girl!"

"The hammer! Please show us the hammer, Amy! You don't even need to use it!"

"I heard that when someone pulls on your tails, they get cursed with bad luck. Is it true?!"

The two just waved at everyone, slowly moved through them until they reached Vanilla, Cream, and Cheese.

"Wait, does that family know them?"

"I don't know, but now that I think about it, that girl looks familiar."

Everyone exchanged their greetings and went straight into swing of things. "So you were able to see the Emerald from the path?" Tails asked.

"Uh-huh, or something else yellowish. But everyone's phones weren't working right when they stood near it, so it must be one of them."

Vanilla chuckled. "Out of everyone there, Cream was the one to have to most experience with Chaos Emeralds."

"Alright then. So where's the warren? We can't go anywhere near it without his permission, right?" Amy said, looking to get thing moving.

Vanilla paused for a moment. She looked a little confused by what Amy said. "Oh sorry. I guess that was our mistake."

"Mistake? How?" Tails asked.

"Oh no, no. It is nothing big, but she is actually coming over here right now." She directed the two with her eyes.

The emphasis Vanilla used was soon explained as a giant woman wearing a ranger uniform closed the distance. She was huge by almost every measure, from her height to her stomach and her arms to her legs. The warren seemed so experienced just her presence alone unnerved Amy and Tails. She just looked down at the almost tumbling yellow fox and pink hedgehog with her slightly wrinkled eyes. To make it even more awkward, she smiled and let out a wholehearted laugh. "Well I'll be! It really be ta 'eroes of ta world!"

She patted them on their heads and forcibly rustled her hands through their hair, making them feel far beyond uncomfortable. Amy forced an uneasy smile and gently pushed the warren's hand away. "Heh, We're glad, but this is a bit much."

The woman withdrew her hands, leaving their hair in a bit of a mess. "S'rry, but don't go blamin' me, ya hear? Ya savin' and such had put a fire in my soul for a long time."

Tails fixed the three locks of hair between his ears and face then cleared his throat. "Sorry about trying to cut this short, but you do know why we're here, right?"

Even with Tails turning the conversation more serious, the warren kept her smile without flinching. "Sure do! Ya want dat shinin' Emerald, of course. Washed up o'er with ta little ones, a'right. Too bad I can't help ya."

"Really?" An annoyed Amy tapped her foot in impatience. "Even we can't get near it? You know that we deal with them on almost a daily basis?"

The warren laughed once again. "'Course I do, but it's really ta park more'an anything. As long as the it stays there, ain't a person allowed to get it."

The crowd of people heard everything and went into an uproar.

"That's insane! You think that thing can just walk away?"

"Come on! They're with Sonic! It pretty much belongs to them!"

"I want to take a picture of the Chao! I know my online friends would love it!"

"Prehaps I should just take it right now and get it over with!"

The last comment rang out among the group and brought anyone to a standstill. Lazily floating behind them, a familiar capsule containing a notorious doctor and his dimwitted assistant held anyone's attention. Rather than displaying his usual dominant appearance, he was shockingly surprised that his words did not mold in with everyone else's. "Uh, should I keep going or...?"

"Eggman!" Amy, Tails, and Cream yelled in unison. The three ran to the front to separate him from the mass of people, with Amy holding the Piko Piko Hammer.

Eggman's attitude changed instantly when faced with a few of his adversities. "Pah! You?! Before we start this, I got business with you, Foxboy!" The doctor's extended finger shot directly towards Tails, pointing right between the eyes. "The EggGolf was built with armor in mind. You and your 'girlfriend' were suppose to exhaust yourself trying to break it, not drowning it in...Ah!" Eggman got hit by a mysterious object right on his cheek. Before he could recover, he got lost in a barrage of flying items. "What the heck is going on?!"

Cubot took shelter behind Eggman's large body. "They throwing food and stuff at us! Hey, is this how you got fat in the first place?"

"Fat!? Why I oughta...!" Eggman got doused by a paper cup of soda, literally cooling him down. He gave Cubot a menacing stare before gestured with his finger, "We'll settle this later."

Amy laid the head of her hammer in the ground as she wait for the people to work it out of their systems. "I remember when they used to run away from him."

"He does have a bit of a losing streak." Tails joked.

Cream was standing still, puzzled by the thing Eggman said. "Um...What did Eggman mean when he said 'girlfriend'?"

Tails sighed, "We can talk about that later..."

Eggman manually pivoted the EggMobile to dodge and weave around the projectiles. "As I was saying, I knew that ever since I abandoned using flickies as an energy source, you been reckless with my machines. It doesn't have the same ring to it when their aren't any hostages to account for, and...Ah!" One person threw a rock at Eggman that got him right on the nose, leaving a welt on it. He closed his eyes and begin to take deep breaths. The EggMobile slowly descended until it was just off the ground. He rose up in his seat to look the mobians in the eyes. "Would you excuse me for a second?"

"Boo! Eggman!"

"Go away! No one wants you here!"

"Why can't you take a hint?!"

The floating capsule shot back up into the air, giving the evil mastermind his desired platform. "Who are you to talk about 'taking a hint', huh? Do you want to know why I knew there was an Emerald here? It's because of all of you! Going on your phones, posting the words 'Chaos' and 'Emerald' over and over again. Don't you know that when you post something online, _anyone_ , even _me_ , can see it?" The revelation hit everyone in the crowd. The noise of screaming insults hushed to idle whispers. "Yeah. It stinks too, because some of you don't it right. One of you typed 'Coas Emanld'...Those aren't even words!"

"I disabled autocorrect!"

"It should be permenant for you!" Eggman eased back into his chair. "Phew! That's better..."

Tails spoke up the commotion died down, "I've been meaning to ask, but where's Orbot?"

"Orbot..." Eggman muttered to himself. "Ah yes! Orbot! You see, I'm tossing you a curveball. This time, he is your target!"

"What?! How can he be a threat?" Amy shouted in disbelief.

"He's not." Overhead, a red and black floating bot revealed itself. With the design of an inverted pitchfork, four long arms, each of the bottom three being able to pivot in place, branched out from a center console. Draped over the console was Orbot, secured in place, unable to move. "He's more, like, fixing a problem the EggSentry had."

Cream expressed concern for Orbot pathetic position, "How come that one is stuck to it?"

"I told Eggman that this design had something exploitable in it. He ensured me that he had a solution. He just so happened to have duct tape at the time." Orbot answered, not being able to do much else.

"Hey! I taped your mouth, too!"

"That's not where my speakers are, sir."

"It was supposed to be symbolic."

"Well you got to actually be part of the EggSentry. That's a promotion!" Cubot cheered.

"We need a union..."

The EggSentry pointed many lasers that danced around Amy, Tails, and Cream. "And this is the point where I say: Attack!" The crowd of people retreated into the museum for safety. Flashes blasted out of the sentry, sending out rockets and rounds. There was slight panic, but it was not much of a problem for the three. It seemed pretty straightforward: damage the guns on each arm, then get in close to the console that was behind poor Orbot.

"I got it!" Tails yelled. He ran until his twin tails propelled him forward, sending him to one of the arms of the machine. He went in for a high speed kick, but when he made contact, the arm pivoted, transferring the force behind it. Tails was surprised with how freely it could spin, but went wide eyed when it stopped spinning to directly target him again. The arm began to shoot again, but Tails took to the air.

Amy saw what happened to Tails while dealing with her own problems. "I thought this was going to be simple, but that was crafty. You can't hit the arms."

Cream actively dodged her fair share, but had no real clue of how to proceed. However she noticed something critical, "Hey, Eggman's leaving! He's going after the Emerald!"

"Oh no, he's not!" Tails rushed to chase after Eggman, but the top arm lashed out, quickly wrapping itself around his ankles, and flicked him to the ground. With a whip-like arm and several guns and launchers, the EggSentry seemed like revamped version of the EggGolf, covering both long range and short.

"Cream, go after Eggman! Tails and I would finish things here!"

Cream nodded and left for the trees. The EggSentry targeted her, but Amy played as a distraction long enough for Cream to fly out of range.

Tails got up unscathed. "Okay, we can't hit the ones on the bottom, and the one on top can grab you."

"Can we get the ones on the bottom to hit each other or something?" Amy questioned.

"Not unless you're right between them."

"So we need them to stop spinning and the other one to stop moving?"

This gave Tails an idea. "Amy, get ready because I'm about to make an opening." Tails flew up above the EggSentry the provoke the top arm into pursuing him. It worked. It threw itself to Tails who lead it to the space between the bottom arms. Being unable to target him when he was above them, they could not track him as he circled around each one, the lenghty arm tying itself up in the process. With each one surrounded, Tails led the remainer of the arm in the opposite direction of Amy who saw the opening Tails was talking about. Not wanting to waste this opportunity, she charged in with her hammer in her hands.

Orbot, facing an inevitable event, shook with the closest thing Eggman programmed within him to resemble fear. "Please! You got time! At least have to decency to pull the tape off first!"

"Sorry, Orbot." Amy said. With a leap, she slammed her hammer on top of Orbot, into the sentry bot, causing the entire thing to fall apart. Each individual piece crashed into the ground. No longer setting up the plan, Tails returned to the ground. Without any surveying, Orbot was found bringing himself to a stand, peeling off excess tape.

"This is...weird..." Orbot confessed.

"Uh? What's weird?" Tails asked confessed.

"Amy, she hit me, but instead of turning to scrap, I went through the machine and don't have a scratch on me."

Tails reasoned to the assistant to his adversary, "Maybe you're just made from a harder or more resilient material than the sentry."

Orbot could not comprehend it. "What? That doesn't seem right. Why would he make me out of something stronger than a combat machine?"

Amy slung her hammer over her shoulder when she found the two. "Maybe because he doesn't you to be destroyed. We've seen Eggman go through many...episodes. Perhaps he want you to stay around because you and Cubot keep him sane...er."

Orbot stood there reflecting on what they told him. "So, all that yelling, the unnecessary hitting, the...Oh! Aren't we supposed to go see Eggman has the Emerald now?" Both Amy and Tails gasped before leaving Orbot where he was. "Wait! It'll be faster for me to go with you...He is my ride home after all."

-Chao Garden-

"Ahh!" Eggman's plan to swipe the Emerald when everyone was busy was cut short. Upon reaching the garden, he immediately started getting pestered by two chao, one black and reddish with a spike ball over its head, the other a white bluish with a halo.

"Aw, sir. They want to play with you." Cubot said, enjoying the light one's childish charm.

"This isn't time, ah, for playing. I am not about to let these runts ruin my chance to, hey!" The dark one took the glasses off of his face then donned them himself. "Hey you! Give those back; they're prescription!" It mused in Eggman's misfortune. Not playing around, he snatched his glassed back and pushed the light one out of the EggMobile.

"Hey, that wasn't nice."

"...Evil genius. And this evil genius is yet one more step closer to world domination." Turing his sight to the waterfall, he used a spring-lock contraption to seize the Emerald from the comfort of his own ride. Transferring the yellow Emerald to his hand, he smiled in his demented way.

While he was marveling in his early called victory, Cream came up from behind him. Trying to stop him from both getting the Emerald and harassing the chao, she planted her feet in the cockpit of the EggMobile and grabbed hold of Eggman's long mustache. The pain caused Eggman to launch the Emerald over his shoulder. He was too busy with the rabbit that he didn't even noticed.

"Stop it! Stop it!" He yelped in legitimate pain. "I don't care what that article said; it's real, It's re-e-ealll!"

"No!" was all that Cream said.

Using whatever coordination he had, he grabbed the young rabbit and chucked her into the water underneath. Surfacing up for air, she was met with the sight of the EggMobile built-in blasters. "You darn annoying pest! This is what you get for sticking your nose where it doesn't belong."

Right as he was going to activate it, Eggman was caught in a containment field of some kind. Cream was rightfully confused about what was going on. A yell from a familiar woman, however, stole her attention. "'ey, girlie." cried the warren. "I saw dis ding y'all were looking for on da walkway. Since it ain't in da forest, I believe ye friends would wantta see it."

Eggman could not move much, but he saw the Emerald the warren was holding. "What?! NO!"

Cream look at the immobile doctor once more before taking the Emerald, taking the woman, and running back.

"Eggman, what's going on?" Cubot unsteadily asked.

"Tractor beams of some kind. But they have to be coming from somewhere closed." He scanned the wall of mountain until he found some out of place shadows in the rocks. "Optic camo, huh?"

The warren's face finally turned serious as she faced the doctor. "Doctor Robotnik! I am Captain Carter of Department 4 for G.U.N. And I place you under arrest!"

 **This is the part where I take it upon myself to inform you (the reading audience) that I do not claim any of the ownership rights or others concerning the characters owned by SEGA.**

 **I got a cover picture for the story. Yay! Colored pencil with a white background on a rather bright website. Yay!**

 **...**

 **...This is the time where you're supposed to speak.**

 ***Glances over cover photo and original draft* You didn't color in her mouth...**

 **...Well would you look at that. Putting that aside for now, thank you for reading. As some might know, I tend to keep my self-promoting to a minimum. I do need to tell you though that the reviews and favorites you leave do bolster my fragile...ego? I think it's ego? Anyway, you give me the sense that I am capable entertain, even if it's for ten minutes a week. Once again, thank you.**


	8. Chapter 8

In the ruined shrine on Angel Island, the earlier commotion came to a stand-still when the blue hedgehog and red echinda saw the collapsed girl by the giant gem. Their reaction came too late to prevent her from landing softly on the the paved ground. The two were concerned over what happened to her, but Sonic was much more helpful in attempting to awaken her. His constant nudging and shaking prove futile in reviving Rouge, but the purple haze on her forehead did not go unnoticed. "Aw man. I didn't think of the day where Tails would kill me."

Knuckles remained reserved. Granted it was in his interest to assist, but the confirmation of her identity made him all the more bitter. "That's what she gets. She tried to pull another fast one and went for the Master Emerald."

Sonic rolled his eyes at Knuckles remark. "Seriously? She not the quite the same person who tried to take it before."

Knuckles scoffed and turned his head in distaste. "Yeah, well, she did it again anyway. She didn't change as far as I can see."

The hedgehog facepalmed, "C'mon! What's the point of a rivalry if you can't help out once in a while? You know, lending them a hand so they could be at their best during your next little competition?"

Knuckles snapped back, "Hey! We're not like rivals, okay! I'm the guardian and she's a thief! We're more like sworn enemies!"

"Yeah yeah. Well since your the guardian, perhaps you can explain this." Sonic crouched and pointed at the dot hovering over Rouge's forehead. "Something like this isn't natural, no matter how you look at it."

Eyeing the suspicious haze, Knuckles continued to ignore Sonic. This did not last as he began to exhale and scratch under his dreadlock-like quills. "Fine, but if we get her to wake up, she's going straight off my island." With an indifferent shrug from Sonic, Knuckles inspects the collapse Rouge. Merely passed out, she posed no current threat. In fact, she looked unburdened in her deep sleep. The echinda counted her lucky that she did not have her usual smug smile.

Examining the haze, he poked at it, not really sure what that would do. Typical for seemingly gaseous things, it ran across his hand until he pulled it back. Like the ball on top of a chao's head, it would move somewhat freely but resettled back to the same place. He groaned as he redirected himself to the Master Emerald. Mostly invisible to Sonic, the gem showed a few blurred images to its lone protector. A chaos emerald with a glimmer of light orbiting around it. "Okay, so the first Emerald was the purple one, right?"

"Yeah, definitely."

Knuckles flinched, "Then it's possible she has some Chaos Energy in her."

"Wait, hold up! So she has some of the Emerald's power in her?"

"Maybe, but if she does, then it stuck there. It's different then when you or Shadow use Chaos Control. You use the power straight from the Emerald, but the power is trapped inside her and can't move. Maybe when she touched the Master Emerald, it tried to fix the problem, and failed."

"Okay. So, did it tell you how to stop what's happening and wake her up?"

"That's all I know, really!" Knuckles waved his hands in front of his face.

Sonic sat down in frustration. "Great...Guess the only thing I could do now is wait for Tails and Amy to come back."

A short amount of time passed. As Rouge snoozed away, Sonic relaxed in the open space surrounded by the trees. The speedster, even through enjoys traveling around mach speed, was down to chill at zero miles per hour and soak in the environment. Knuckles was silent. Humiliated by the girl's tricks, there was nothing more that he wanted to do then threw her off the island. With her asleep, he lifted her and started to move her.

Sonic was oblivious until he heard the sound of Knuckles walking down the stairs. "Knucks, what are you doing?"

Knuckles kept walking. "I'm just making sure that when she wakes up, she doesn't get any more ideas. She's going to be far away from the Master Emerald."

"I get that, I guess, but you shouldn't really move someone who's unconscious." Sonic stood up from his resting position.

Knuckles was on the verge of saying something when the sound of propellers loomed closer to Angel Island. "Huh? That can't be good..."

The sound began to echo throughout the trees and their canopies rustled from the winds that it created. Emerging from the leaf-covered horizon were three helicopters. Two military grade copters were escorting a bulky cargo-ship. The hedgehog and the echinda did not interrupt them as all three eased on to the island. After being properly grounded, a small company of soldiers spilled out of the aircraft, forming a curved line of defense.

From one of the copters came a sharply dressed man, different than the decorated soldiers. It was clear he was to take part in negotiations. "Ahem. This is a independent mission of Department Seven of G.U.N. Let me speak on behalf of..."

Knuckles cut the man short in his introduction. "Hey! Didn't we have a deal?!" There was an arrangement between him and the United Federations. Since the echinda race were charged with protecting the Master Emerald and Knuckles is the last of their lineage, it was legally his property. To further prevent debate over the island, Angel Island was for all intents and purposes a territory of the United Federation. The rest of it got too complicated for the echinda to process.

"We're not here for the Master Emerald." He pointed at the girl Knuckles was holding. "Can you confirm that this is Rouge the Bat?"

"Uh, yeah?"

"Then if we can secure her, we would have no other business here."

"Oh, okay. Here." Knuckles could not really argue with them if they were being flexible.

"Knucks!" Sonic cut him off before he could make the transfer. "Man...Anyway, why do you need Rouge?"

It was in the man's power to refuse to answer, but it was better to have everyone cooperate. Piecing together the confidential details, he shaped his response carefully. "Rouge is a member of G.U.N. Due to recent events, she has had virtually disappeared."

Sonic played the voice of reason, "Yeah, well look at her. She lost more than a couple of years on her age."

"We are aware of the conversation you had with Knuckles. Let me tell you, this is manageable."

"But..." Sonic muttered before looking down. He knew Tails would be devastated if he could not return Rouge back to normal, but knew not to pick this kind of trouble with G.U.N. "C-can you at least give us a chance to changed her back later?"

"I can't make any promises."

Looking at the row of soldiers and army men, Sonic did not have much of a choice. He gestured for Knuckles to go ahead. A medic team came with a stretcher, laid her down and began a checkup. After getting an all-clear that a change in attitude posed no threat, she was lifted to the cargo ship. Sonic and Knuckles just watched as everyone piled into the aircraft and ascended to the sky.

Knuckles saw Sonic who was looking up with his hands behind his head. "I don't really care, but you're okay with this?"

Sonic shook his head. "Of course not. Tails and Amy would be bummed, but at least she can stay safe. They not bound to do anything shady to her. Well, maybe not right of the bat."

"W...was that a pun?"

"No, it wasn't supposed to be."

-Rigid Hillside-

The trees that surrounded Cream cloaked her in shadows as she ran on the path. Still soaked, flying would have proven to be much more difficult. Sticking to the nature walk, she was certain she was going the shortest route possible back to the museum. Still a bit away from the exit, Amy and Tails got sight of her and stopped. They were glad she didn't really suffer any damage from Eggman but were shocked that she actually had the Emerald.

Tails asked her,"Cream, how did you get away from Eggman?"

"He just stopped all of the sudden. Then the warren lady showed up and gave me the Emerald. I hope she's okay."

Orbot, who was racing to not get left behind, passed the group during Cream's statement. "He stopped? While losing the Emerald? That can't be right." He spoke to himself, picking up the pace.

"If you ask me, I think she could hold her own." Amy said. "But we need to make sure Eggman hightails out of here."

Tails agreed, "Yeah. Cream, keep going. We'll finish up with Eggman."

Just as quickly as they stopped, everyone left again. Cream continued towards the museum. Amy and Tails headed for the chao garden, passing Orbot again in the process. Orbot piped up, "You know, I would not find it demeaning to be carried!"

-Chao Garden-

Eggman was being held captive in his own pod. The shell of the EggMobile was illuminated in its prison, leaving the mad scientist suspended in mid-air. With the woman standing opposed to him and the camoflagued machines in the rocky terrain, Eggman growled.

Cubot was on edge. "Eggman, what are we going to do?"

Eggman went for a small device under the cover of the EggMobile, "I got it." He whispered, "How about you shut up and let me do all the talking." He turned to Captain Carter. "I'm rather surprised you could set up a sting this quickly. Carter of Department Four, huh? I've done my fair share of research, Courtney!"

The captain was not expecting the doctor to know her first name, but it did not phase her. "Really? Apparently not enough to know the real warren was a golden-years man with a receding hairline."

"That hiccup wouldn't happen to be a coverup from Department Four, would it? Seriously, your whole departments system is rather sloppy." Eggman wanted to keep the conversion going for as long as he could.

"For all the years you spent harassing us, we expected you would understand that you are Department Four's most wanted criminal!"

"Well of course. Since your department is concerned with internal defenses, I believe I've made my mark."

"You're stalling!" Carter called his bluff.

Scanning the device he previously grabbed, Eggman knew he needed more time. As if to grant him his opportunity, Amy and Tails appeared from the nature walk and startled Captain Carter. "Wait, what are you doing here?! Did that girl gave you the Emerald?!"

Eggman smiled as he waited.

Tails witnessed the scene before him. The EggMobile was unnaturally suspended in midair above the clean water while the warren was standing opposed to him. The glow around Eggman revealed to Tails what was going on. "So that's why he stopped. A containment field."

"Wait a minute, didn't you have an accent a while ago?" Amy noticed.

Carter tried to sort them out as quickly as possible. "It was fake. We knew he would come here after all the posts went online. Now we're going to take him into custody."

Eggman growled. He just needed to wait a moment longer to avoid just that.

"Sir!" Orbot zoomed towards the water's edge. "Well, I thought you were in a bit of a pickle, but..."

"Great. Orbot, you're getting another promotion! Now you are no longer defense, but offense!" Eggman shouted in desperation. "Now attack the military lady!"

Orbot was not quite sure what to make of the order, but one look at the woman told him not to confront with her. "Really? I did survive Amy, but this is just..."

"You're nothing more than a dog, Robotnik!" Carter snapped.

"That's my business card,'lady'. Evil..." With a flick of a switch on the remote, a surge engulfed the air around him. "Genius!" It began to grow in size until it followed two invisible streams leading to the the beam manufacturers. The two mechs started to short circuit, dropping their camouflage and causing them to tumble down the rocky cliff.

"This is Flap Neck, I'm losing control!"

"Four Horns! Many interfaces ceasing function!"

Rather than appending Eggman, Amy and Tails went the agents of the fallen mechs. Carter was left in no position to confront him. She did have a standard issue gun, but the bottom of the airborne pod was proven to be bullet proof. Being captain of the department responsible for defense, she was not taking this failure well.

Free from the grab of the tractor beams, Eggman laughed his triumphant heart out. While the Eggmobile left unscathed, the pulse effected Cubot's defected voice clip. "Yo boss, mind telling us what ya did?"

Eggman pause at this unexplored side of Cubot's voice. "You supposed to see me as a ruler of the world, not a petty mob boss." He grabbed the spring-lock arm and retrieved Orbot off of the ground. "You see, tractor beams use electromagnetic fields to simulate gravitational forces. As with most electromagnetic forces, it can be jammed or interfered. It comes by knowing the specifics of it, like the frequency. That was I spent my time doing."

"So we're surrounded and lost our chance at the emerald. I believe it we should cut our loses while we have the chance." Orbot requested.

"Ya, we gotta get outta here." Cubot agreed.

Eggman saw where they were coming from. "Right. We should take our leave. Oh and one more thing, Courtney." He said to the woman that hated his guts. "You will always remember 'this' was the day that you _almost_ caught Dr. Robotnik!" Eggman began to float away stopping when he saw the disassembled EggSentry a short distance away. Even though it was not in one piece, most of it still seemed functional. "You know what, Orbot? I'm demoting you."

"There was not really much I could do." The assist-bot defended himself.

"Yeah, yeah." The doctor pushed a button, releasing a giant magnet that pulled the EggSentry up. He hoped that he might soon be able to 'improve' the design.

During the flight, he came across an anomaly. On his radar, he picked up a signal of a Chaos Emerald, but it was weaker than normal. Scoping the horizon, he saw a group of G.U.N. aircraft coming in from his ten.

"Seems like we can have a bit more fun." Fidgeting around, he found a controller which bought the EggSentry back to life. "The game's not over yet!"

 **Let me make this clear...I do not own the Sonic characters, SEGA does.**

 **Now as I am uploading this, I am too tired and would like to return to bed. I did cut this chapter a bit short, leaving out a few pieces. I am sorry, but if I don't set up a timeline to procrastinate to, then these chapters may never get posted. I'll post a shorter than usual chapter maybe Monday (Aug. 8) to make up for it. But I promise you, after that, we're going to go back to Rouge.**


	9. Chapter 8 part 2

The aftermath near the chao garden was in an unfortunate loss for the G.U.N. agents. Both the Flap Neck and Four Horns mechs were fried, but each one's pilot survived without a scratch. Eggman took advantage of the situation long enough to escaped custody. The only consolation was that they were able to force him to retreat empty-handed.

Given the mayhem, the park and the chao garden remained practically untouched. Most of the chao got spooked after Eggman tossed Cream into the water and tucked themselves in their surroundings. The light and dark chao were the first to return. Others followed as if they were the leaders, guardians, or some equivalent. As soon as the mechs get airlifted out, they can easily open the nature walk again.

The pilots were freed from their metal cages by Amy and Tails. Keeping to their professionalism, they fell in before Captain Carter. The captain could mutter about Eggman all she wanted, but that would only serve to agitate her further. She acknowledged the specialists and had them to organized the evac. She saw it was more worth her time to address the mobians. "When I gave the girl the Emerald, I knew, well I thought, she was going to give it to you. Didn't you see her a moment ago?" Carter was restraining from yelling.

Amy caught the captain's tone, causing hers to match. "Hey, we thought we were alone out here. If we had known you guys had shown up, then maybe we would have let you handle it."

"That was not a real option given your paparazzi!"

Tails hovered his hand in front of Amy's face, bringing much annoyance to her. "Sorry about that." He apologized. "We did see Cream, but we had to make sure Eggman was gone."

"Better kicking him out than having him hold the people hostage." Amy responded.

The captain eyed the two. Her giant form was still intimidating to them. Of the parts of arms that were exposed, they were visibly tensed with anger. "Listen. There is nothing more that me or Department Four wants than to capture that man." She looks up to the sky in the direction Eggman had left. "Enjoy the Emerald...It seems you always get lucky." Carter solemnly said before turning her body away, not wanting to continue. Taking the hint, Amy and Tails turned around for the museum.

-Museum-

The yellow Chaos Emerald sparkled in Cream's hands in front of the onlookers. Everyone was elated that it was not recovered by Eggman, though a little bitter that being close to it was messing up their electronics. While Vanilla and Cheese shared a hug with her knowing that she's safe, the people were talking up a storm.

"She and the little guy were the first to see it. It's only fair."

"She just a kid though! She shouldn't have thrown herself into danger like that!"

"What mother would allow their child to do that?!"

"Hey, she had Tails and Amy on speed-dial!"

Moments later, everyone met up again. The people went back to their constant onslaught of questions for Amy and Tails. Cream got excited when they returned and gave Tails the Chaos Emerald he needed to power the age machine. However, since it was still mostly dismantled, the Emerald was placed into the Tornado's engine for the time being. Things were looking up for everyone until an imcoming message came in through Tornado's radio.

"Hey Tails? You there, buddy?" Sonic's picture came up on a monitor. After what happened on Angel Island, he returned to the workshop to pick up a video watch, of Tails' design of course.

Tails was quick to respond to him. "Sonic! We got another Chaos Emerald!"

Sonic winced at the present irony of the situation, but was amused all the same. "That's great. But...Well, the tracker Rouge used led her to Angel Island. And to make a long story short...well, Rouge is gone..."

Tails' heart sank, "What? How did that happen?!"

"She's one of G.U.N.'s agents and they wanted to make sure she wasn't up to no good." Sonic peeked Tail's falling expression. "But hey, we'll see her again. There's no way she won't stay hidden for long." He smiled with a thumbs up.

Tails nodded, "Yeah, if anything, they'll let her go because she wouldn't have any memories of them. They would probably want their agent back, not someone they would need to teach again."

"That's the spirit! No use fussing over it now. Just get back here, okay? " Sonic replied.

Having spent enough time by in Rigid Hillside, Tails called Amy over to the plane for the return trip. The Rabbits' vacation had a little surprise leading to a unforgettable experience. While Cream did not get to play with the chao, she was happy to have helped them. The crowd of people warmheartedly waved their farewells, giving each mobian a silent piece of mind.

-Chao Garden-

"Captain Carter here!"

"Courtney, I got horrible news..."

"Lisa? What happened?"

"That evac you asked for would have to wait. One of my mission went...wrong. Your favorite target took out the recovery effort."

"He didn't retreat back to his base?!"

"No, Winson summarized that he had some kinda robotic tentacle thing that just jammed the propellers. But what's worse was he took our 'precious cargo'."

"..."

"...Courtney...?"

 **Sonic characters are owned by Sega. I am not going to declare them to be mine, because they are not.**

 **In the last author's note, I've stated that I had cut the last chapter short, and I'm now plugging in the rest here. I also said Monday, but I am not asleep yet, so it's still Monday to me! I'm sure some of you can related.**

 **Work on Chapter 9 starts immediately.**


	10. Chapter 9

The sleeping girl laid on a patch of lush grass sitting at the foot a large structure. She took deep breaths in her slumber, the air that rushed in and out of her nose carried the grass to tickle her face. She lazily tried to push it aside, but unless she pulled it from its roots, it was a wasted effort. With the blades of grass poking her, she slowly began to sit up and rub the weariness from her eyes. She did not know why she got so tired all of the sudden. Given the time she spent with the twin-tailed fox, she would not need to rest at the ruined shrine.

It took for the bat to fully open her eyes to realize that she was not at the same place she was before. She was at the shrine, but it was drastically different. The stairway, which were chipped, cracked, and eroded before, looked like they were chiseled the day before. They led to the top of the shrine with an entirely new canopy standing over where the Master Emerald was. Closer to her level, a moat was dug around the base of the shrine with pathways crossing over them. Standing in the moat were seven tall pillars to were spaced evenly between each consecutive pillar and the center platform.

More curious was the area outside the plaza. The sky was a darker shade of blue than it usually was during the day. Which was difficult to judge since there was no sun in it; there was no clear source of light. Plus, the horizon formed a perfect circle, making the sky look more like a wall. Angel Island was already floating, but now it seemed like the shrine was floating in an abyss of nothing.

Rouge looked on in the otherworldly edition of the island. She convinced herself she was still asleep and was just dreaming this up. From trying to go back to sleep to forcibly pulling her eyes open, nothing she could do was able to do the trick. She was stuck with no foreseeable way out.

"Let's see..." Rouge began to speak in thought, "The blue one came in from the sky, the stupid one said I was my own mom or something, I got to the big Emerald..." She started to recount the Master Emerald and how she started touching it. It emitted a light under her hand that blinded her. Weird enough, she did not remember laying down, losing her balance, or getting to the ground for any reason. "That thing did this. I know it." She looks up the stairs to the new resting place for the big treasure. "Looks like I don't have much of a choice, do I?"

Crossing the grass to the stone-paved walkway, she took her sweet time. She climbed the stairs one step at a time, letting her boots make a sound every time she took a step. Reaching the top, she found the Master Emerald waiting for her, which did not surprise her. She still took in the brilliance of the gem, but she did not like entertaining the idea of being trapped forever. It hovered in place, somewhat menacingly moving inches up and down at regular intervals.

Rouge began to step forward again as she reached her arm out to stroke the gem again. As she got close, a ball of light came from the Master Emerald, unnatural for a cut gem to reflect. The ball migrated into the air in front of Rouge, which caused her to pause briefly. The sphere of light slowly distorted at the bottom to double its size in length. The new section sprouted out four additional extensions while the back of the original grew outwards and downwards. In the process of seconds, the light morphed into the image of Tikal, the young echidna spirit girl.

Rouge started to piece a connection with echidnas and the Master Emerald. At least this one looked docile in comparison to Knuckles.

Tikal's floating form came to a landing before Rouge. The tribal looking girl placed one of her hands other the other and tilted her head slightly in a customary sign of respect. When she returned to Rouge, her brow sagged in a tell that she needed to address something pressing. "Hello, Miss Rouge. I know about what happened to you a few days ago."

"Wait, first you need to tell me if I dreaming right now." Rouge demanded before they went any further.

Tikal flinched from Rouge's assertiveness, "Well, yes. You are asleep." She composed herself as she was getting closer to what she wanted to say. "It was necessary. You're mostly unaware of this, but the accident did more than just reverse your age." Tikal gestured for Rouge to follow her downstairs and Rouge obliged. Stopping at the moat, she and Rouge went to their knees and peered into the water's surface. Rouge saw for the first time the faded dot planted on her forehead.

"Uhh...?" Rouge wiped her forehead to rid herself of it, which did not work. "What is this?"

"It is the energy from the Chaos Emerald. When you touched the Master Emerald, the energy was ordered to return to it but was trapped in you. To protect you from the strain that would have enveloped your body, you were put in a state that both limited stress and greatly help you perceive this vision; sleep."

Tikal dipped a finger into the water and swirled it to cause distorted ripples to spread. "During the accident, the conditions were unlike any to naturally occur. It tried to utilize the Chaos Energy and bound some to you by random chance."

"So since I have some of that energy stuff, can I now do all kinds of weird stuff?" Rouge tried to inquire.

Tikal shook her head in denial, "No, for two reasons." The waters now displayed an image of the Chaos Emeralds in their heptagonal pattern. "The power of chaos grow exponentially when gathered, making one's wish more possible to achieve. But yours is a fraction of a whole. Its power alone is insignificant." A small wave washed over the display, leaving a single emerald on the surface. "And on the other point, you, individually, can't harness its power." Rouge face twisted in disapproval, wondering why she was different. "Sorry, that's was misleading. It's pretty normal for pretty much everyone to not do it. You are just part of that crowd."

It was a punch in the gut for Rouge to hear that she was not someone special. Plus it did not come from any average person. It came from ancient girl who had incredible knowledge who had to basically knock her out just to strike up a conversation. Rouge took it as a personal insult to her character. As if the echidna was scorning her for meddling with the treasures. "So you trapped me in my own mind just to make fun of me?!" She furiously yelled at the spirit.

"No!" Tikal looked up in shock, not knowing where that came from. "This is very important! You are in serious danger!"

This concerned Rouge enough to drop her accusation. "Danger? What kind of danger?"

"The servers are the seven chaos. When reunited, a Final Chaos Control would take place, returning the Emeralds to there original power before dispersing. Unless you can return the Chaos Energy before then, it's a race against the clock." Tikal pointed out to the confused bat.

"Wait, I thought the point was to return the power. Why not wait if it's going to do what we need anyway?"

"Remember what I said about them being more powerful when they are together?" Tikal helped Rouge to recall. "With all that power, your body won't be able to stop it again. Anything can happen during Final Chaos Control, and you will take the bulk of it."

Rouge gritted her teeth in light of this horrible news. She was not exactly grateful, but it was a lot better for her to know this. "So, how am I supposed to that? Do I need to do things in reverse? Just step in the machine again?"

"Without the purple Emerald in your possession, there is nothing you can do." Tikal uneasily said.

"But I don't have it anymore. That weird scientist guy took it from right under my nose. I can't just take it back; I don't know where he is." The only way for Rouge to get out of this was to do the impossible.

Tikal took Rouge's hand to have her not lose faith. "You shouldn't give up." Rouge looked at their hands and slid hers free. "Finding it again will be the hardest part. Once you're holding it in your hands, you'll just have to wish with all your heart to return the power."

The bat stared at the tribal girl, "...Wish with my heart? Seriously?"

"Yes..."

"You're some spirit thing, so being vague right now is a little on the nose."

"I know, but it works. I've seen it happen."

Rouge sighed as she formed her plan, "So I only need to hold it to fix this? If I get it back from that guy, then I should be set. Then Foxboy can change back to normal. If more energy gets trapped after that, we could just fix that right away, right? It doesn't really change the plan all that much."

In her contemplation, a tremor rocks the temple, shocking even Tikal who was in control of the dream. The ground underneath them dropped suddenly, sending everything into a free fall. Rouge, Tikal, the Master Emerald, and the moat's water rose higher and higher in the air. The worrisome part was that the land underneath them started to dissolve.

"What's going on?!" Rouge fanned out her wings to prolong the inevitable.

"Something extreme must be happening outside!" Tikal thought out loud.

"So I'm just a sitting duck our there?!"

Tikal began to glow as she slowly reformed back into the ball of light she was before. She did not move her mouth, but her voice still rang in Rouge's ear. "This was the only chance I had to speak with you. There was more to discuss, but I have to wake you up."

At the mention of lost details, Rouge put her desire to wake up on hold. "Wait, what else is there? You tell me I might die and leave some things out?!" The sphere disappeared in front of her, leaving her questions unanswered.

The edges of the illusion island began to shine bright white as less of the land became visible. In the final moments of the vision, a torrent of water passed Rouge's vision. It was unreal because even though it was airborne, it still showed a reflection. She only saw it for a split second, but she clearly saw the purple dot on her head in the water. The rest of it was off though. It could have been the irregular tension in the water distorting things, but the reflection did not really show the girl. At a moment's glance, the ears and wings looked the same, but the eyes were...different. They held experience.

-?-

Outside the confines of her mind, Rouge slept on her back with her head on a pillow. The haze over her face sank into her head before complete vanishing. A second later, the bat girl started to stir awake, slightly sore for whatever reason. She remember the dream she had and made a note to take all of it seriously. During her preparation, she faintly heard a couple of voices.

"...Torture...?"

"...Electroc..."

Eyes wide open, Rouge found herself stuck in a prison cell. She was trapped in a rather spacious box with glass door separating her and the two people talking. If it would be fortunate or not, she was familiar with them.

"So at one point inbetween the times he gets zapped, his friend shows up to give a handkerchief and a bottle of ketchup." Cubot told his story with enthusiasm.

"What can he possibly use those for?" Orbot asked.

Eggman's goofy helpers were standing guard to Rouge's cell, with not so much as a weapon to defend themselves, let alone Rouge. She got furious in being locked up that she attempted to break the glass wall with a charging kick. It backfired, as not only did it remain standing, it send shivers down her spine that caused her to recoil. It did attract the robots' attention though.

"Oh, she finally awake!" Orbot responded in surprise.

When the pain from the impact subsided, Rouge demanded, "Hey you morons, let me out of here!"

It was her turn to be surprised as there was a click and the door open. She did not think in her right mind that they would have listened to her. "There you go. Down the hall, up the stairs, first double on the left." Cubot instructed.

Rouge was beginning to question her luck. "Uhh...Aren't you supposed to stop me?"

"Eggman had us put you in the cell to keep you from wandering off. He said he wanted to see you when you woke up." Orbot clarified.

Remembering the dream, Rouge went along with this. Knowing that Eggman had the one Emerald she actually needed, she decided to talk with him in hoping to work something out. At the very least, she would try to deceive him.

Eggman stood in the middle of what looked like a research lab. The computer terminal setup rivaled that of the one at G.U.N. Fortress's command hub. There were pipe's that connected the ceiling, floor, and walls together. If there was any question of who owned this place, the countless busts and items of Eggman's likeness would answer that question.

When the double door slid open to reveal Rouge, Cubot, and Orbot on the other side, Eggman smiled. "Good, you're awake." Rouge stepped in to the room, readying to confront the one man standing in her way. The robots almost filed in after her before being yelled at. "No, you two stay out! You're not going to ruin this for me!"

Eggman pressed a button to slam the doors in their faces. "Well, so what happened with that doomsday device?" Orbot reignited their previous conversation.

Rouge stood cross-armed against the doctor. She knew he would not have taken her if he did not have a reason to. To talk things out no less showed that he was very interested in something. "What do you want, creep?"

Eggman picked at his mustache, "Youth today, they did have any respect. Anyway, I'm sure you been having some questions about your future self and all that."

"Well, not re..."

"Which is why I need to show you this." The big screen showed a series of pictures, all containing Rouge. A security image from when she raided Prison Island, her revealing a Chaos Emerald to Eggman, and a video of her stomping on a huge button to drain liquids into the room were highlighted while other stayed in the background. Eggman walked up the monitor. "Sorry about that EggGolf thing..."

"Still a stupid name..."

"I know you don't remember anything from the recent years, but in reality..." Eggman looked slyly over his shoulder at Rouge. He widely smiled, "You have been working for...er _with_ me!"

 **SEGA owns the rights the characters I have used in this story. yada yada I don't own them...Can I really use 'yada yada'?**

 **And I manage to post this on time. I know it's like two thousand words, but that's about average.**

 **Here is where the stakes are raised. So on top of the age thing, Rouge must also rid herself of the Chaos Energy before Final Chaos Control.**

 **Can you really reference a M rated game on a T- rated story?**

 **Well were any of the references M rated?**

 **Review and favorite if you both like this and fell like doing so.**


	11. Chapter 10

Unlike in his previously forced monologue, Eggman stepped back to allow the girl to take it in. If he could convince her enough to recruit her, this could be one of the greatest successes he had in years. The pictures and videos were selectively chosen to convince her to hear him out. He presented the most appealing 'evidence' upfront to build the basis to exploit her.

Rouge looked at the giant screen that was littered with her older self. While there were some hits and misses that the younger bat saw from the adult thief's looks and attire, she recognized the boots and the breastplate that she destroyed. Her kicking potential was also in practice but exceed her current capabilities. She was in denial trying to accept that she had worked with this guy, but more observations only lead to more confirmations.

"No..." The former thief clutched her hand into a fist. She shot a look at Eggman that startled him enough to flinch but not step back. "You're trying to take over the world! Why would I'd be stupid to help a disaster of a person like you?!"

"What?! You came to me with...!" The doctor started before prying into her sentence. "Wait, what do you mean be disaster."

Rouge pulled no stops in trying to be delicate; she told it as it was. "You're a crazy creep, you probably have the dumb guys around to feel smarter, I get the feeling we're the only two living things here, and...just look at you...You're supposed to be human, or something, but your body is large, your head is small, and your arms and legs are too thin. What are you?"

Eggman was seeing red. He constantly stomped his foot onto the floor as if he was a charging bull. He leered at the girl that threw insults at him with his teeth showing in complete anger. His fingers spread out and flew over Rouge's head."You...YOU...YOUUUU!" Rouge was prepared to backstep him trying to grab her and follow up with a counter. Instead, his hands slapped against his knees and he looked towards the ground. Her words have struck more than one nerve in him as he spoke somewhat defeated. You reintroduced some problems I had to deal with earlier in my life and never had confronted head on."

This image of him was not winning any points for Rouge. It only served to relight him as a pathetic excuse of a evil mastermind. "Sheesh, can't take a joke?"

Eggman's expression of sadness was just a facade though. His anger before was at a boiling point, but he did not set everything up just to lose his temper. He wanted mutual cooperation with the girl, something that can easily be compromised. With a cough to change the subject before he might lose himself, he continued. "If you have a problem with working with a evil scientist, take it up with yourself."

Rouge pointed her finger at Eggman to make her next statement very clear. "But I'm not evil, or even all that bad!"

The evil genius was quick with a rebuttal, "Maybe not, but you were a thief. Take what you wanted without a worry about who you're stealing from. Only looking out for yourself. Just as long as you got your way." Eggman placed both of his hands behind his back and paced back and forth 'recalling' the experience. "Reminds me of a certain woman who came to me for simple goal in mind. She had no problem getting the things precious to her. The issue was keeping them."

"The Chaos Emeralds?" Rouge asked. "Why would I need them if I can't use them?" She followed up with the information from her vision.

"Like you told me everything about yourself. What the other you wanted was to stop the Emeralds from getting separated after every Final Chaos Control. Even with my mental prowess, I could not do that. Instead, I promised a different kind of situation. If the Eggman Empire would be complete and all powerful, there wouldn't be anyone to oppose me. And your reward for your services were all seven of your favorite treasures. As long as at least one stayed away from the other six, you could hold onto them forever."

The explanation was solid, but almost everything about it was a lie. He obviously knew that Rouge initially dug into Project: Shadow's records for G.U.N. and has crippled his operations more than once. But in his studies, he reformed a common saying and mindset. 'My corrupted enemy would be my enemy's worst enemy.'

"But that's still world domination! I would never be stupid to help you rule the world!" The kid's shouted to vent her anger.

The man shook his finger, "Tsk tsk...This is why I don't like working with kids...They either think too much or not at all." Eggman shrugged his shoulders and began to come clean with some truths, as seen by Eggman. "Yes, global rule is something many people should fear. And sure, I would use that power for my own selfish desires. But! There so many good thing to come of it. Think about it, wouldn't having the whole world under one leadership be the same as world peace?"

"You're trying to play tricks on me, and I'm not falling for it." Rouge was not going to let herself to get swayed by the guy who released a giant robot after her before. She was about done with listening to him ramble on and on. There was only one reason why she tolerated listening to him for this long. Seeing as they were getting nowhere, Rouge was in her right mind to start making demands.

The unheard genius frowned and snorted in distaste. "Fine, I don't need an alliance. But I know you need something very important."

The word 'Shoot!' just popped right in her head. "You are going to give me the purple Emerald?!" Her mouth betrayed her as she said too much. The added effort to single out the purple one would show Eggman that he had more cards do deal with. She quickly remembered that only she could have seen the vision, but she still watched her words.

Evil laughter erupted from the mad doctor, lasting for the better half of twenty seconds. After playing with words for the past few minutes, he was finally in the territory he was familiar with. Making offers people can't refuse. "Ohh! That's a laugh. Listen, girl. Once I get an Emerald, it's paws off to everyone else. I know why you need it though. Just so you know, that little fox isn't the only one that can change you back." His fingers interlocked with each other as he set the hook.

This got Rouge's attention. "Like you can." She said not trusting Eggman's words. "I'll admit, you're a smart guy, but that's no way you can do it. It was an accident, and he couldn't really figure it out. What chance do you have, Eggy?"

The doctor's had another laughing fit, this time, more obnoxious. "My intellect is second to none, let alone a single boy's. Wouldn't it be fitting to call fixing your little problem 'child's play'? Aw, it works on more than one level."

The bat was getting extremely annoyed with the prolong meeting, but saw her advantage. This evil-doer clearly wanted her help in something, willing to pull out all the stops. She found her own leverage in this negotiation. "Sorry, but you lost your chance a long time ago." She began to move for one of the doors, trying to make it look convincing. "I'm sick of this place. I can use this door to leave, right?"

Eggman slid in with absurd speed to stop her in her tracks. "What?! Weren't you trying to grow up? I thought you would take up such an offer as quickly as you could!"

"Sorry, but you're nothing but empty promises. At least I can trust Foxboy to keep his word." Rouge shrugged. If he needed her help with whatever he was going to do, he would need to up his ante. "I just need one Emerald to reverse this mess. We got six more chances, and I'm feeling lucky."

Unbeknownst to her, Eggman lost the chance to pick up a second Emerald. Also as it was Tails who directly got involved, Rouge was the last piece of the puzzle he needed. 'If she can make it back to the little twerp...' He thought in fear.

"And besides, I can stay young, you know. There's no real hurry." She had to steer this closer to the thing that can save her. "If you really want my help, then I can take a payment of a shiny power jewel. Besides, aren't gemstones just money in rock form, right? But since I'm not the only picky one here."

With quick reworking of his current plan, Eggman pitched a new idea, even if he would hate part of it. "Fine then..."

Rouge ears perked up as the doctor started to concede.

"If you do one job of me," Eggman got in real close to add more emphasis, "one little job, then I'll give you two options. One, you can return to that woman there." He pointed at the screen that had the expert jewel thief on it. "The resourceful lady with the ability to snag to her will's content. Or, option two...the Emerald."

Rouge smiled as the Eggman made the Emerald one of these options. "Funny, I thought you said it was 'paws off' to everyone else."

Anger swirled within Eggman. He was not going to lose to this brat. This conversation is still well under his control. "Yes, but now you don't have a luxury that you would have had of you listened to me. I'll grant you either option, but..." At the snap of his fingers, a section of the metal wall started to lean away from the two in the room. The wall soon served as a ramp that revealed what was outside.

It was faint, but there were clouds brushing pass them at eye level. The only ground that can be seen was plated in metal sheets. Hundreds or thousands of turrets and cannons reached out as far as the eye can see, and they could only see in that one direction. Corridors were etched all over the place to create a weird maze that housed hundreds of thousands of Eggman's robotic army.

"After you get your prize, you're going to get kicked out! Then you'll have to deal with being in the very heart of the Eggmada, new flagship of the restored EggFleet! And to think, it's still in Stage One of development." Eggman examined his work in progress, pleased with what he already accomplished.

"You're crazy! Who the heck would agree to such a stupid deal?!" Rouge yelled in surprise. "So what you're saying is that once I help you, you're going to try to get rid of me?!"

"This wouldn't be a problem if you just played along!" He snapped back at her. "Or, still...I suppose there is an option three."

"What? You'll throw in a pat on the back for what a good job I've done?!"

Eggman shook his head, "No, option three would be to go now, empty-handed."

"You're forcing me to work for you?! What was the point of trying to talk it out?" She responded.

"Do we need to over this again? Your behavior stopped you from getting the best part in all of this. Since you insisted on the Emerald, I had to take something away to give it to you. You want it? You can get it. But first, I suggested you think about your options first. The one I was willing to do for you would be your safest bet. All that skill that you lost would come back in an instant. All the know-how to deal with matters like this. Your best chance for survival. If you get the Emerald instead, then it would be no different then if you do it now."

Rouge fully understood the circumstances she was in. "But if I do what you want, then I would have to come back to this trap in order to get either one of those?! That's low!"

"I like to call it job security. Trust me, you'll grew into it." Remembering Rouge's line of work, this was a true statement on his part. "Now I don't think there's much more to discuss here. What will it be?"

Somethings that happened tho Rouge after the accident ended in disaster, but things have took a turn for the worst. No matter what she wanted to do, it was impossible for her to avoid crossing the Eggmada. What's more is that if she flaked on the job Eggman would have her go on, she'd need to cross it anyways to get the Emerald. Finally having remembered that one comment 'it's still in Stage One of development', it would only get harder to storm in. Seeing her choices, she only had one choice. "What do you need me to do?"

Eggman wickedly smiled and chuckled as the bat submitted. "Seeing things my way, huh? And to think, I really could have given you the Emeralds if you would wait until after my global domination. Oh well. Now, you see...This is a job only you can do."

 **SEGA is the owner of the characters that I use in this story, excluding original characters from previous chapters. Under what I believe is fair use, this story as a whole is a parody and no copyright infringement is intended.**

 **Can I be honest for a second.**

 **...I...guess so.**

 **Rouge is a thief and really likes gems, right?**

 **Yeah?**

 **I just find it weird that she doesn't wear any jewelry.**

 **...Mmph...?**

 **Now I promote myself by asking you to comment, favorite, follow and...you know by now. Just know that I really appreciate it.**


	12. Chapter 11

In the dark hours of the night, a black van drove along the highway on the bay outside Capital City. The path was lifted above the water by the support beams jetting from the sea floor. Being on the road this late eased the burden of traffic, even if the city always had some people commuting for some reason or another. It also, however, made it abundantly clear where a certain car was going; making it easier to follow.

Rouge was pushing herself, but managed to keep up with the van. Staying out of view, she weaved through the columns underneath. Following the van was a challenge, but without any lead-offs there was only one place it could go. Whether she was ready are not, she needed to do this job. Due to the circumstances, the odds were not in her favor if she were to decline. The one holding the cards would not leave her on her own though and fitted her with a headset. It was mostly for Eggman's supervision as it served no real purpose to her.

The job that he asked for her to complete was taking longer than either of them suspected. She was instructed to tail a mysterious van that Eggman had full confidence in believing had what he wanted. Three days have passed and all Rouge did was move from place to place to get ever closer to her target. Even at that point, there was no way for her to know how much longer this was going to take. With the van pulling up next to a out-of-shape warehouse, however, it seemed that the chase was finally about to pay off.

Perching on top of a nearby building, Rouge had a clear view of her target. All of the doors of the vehicle opened, and every passenger, all male humans expect for a mobian with a bag over his head, spilled out. Solemnly silent, they went into the warehouse and closed the door behind them, leaving the van unattended.

Without the fear of opposing eavesdroppers, the bat contacted the doctor. "Are you sure these are the guys we're after? I thought you said that you were after a 'package' of some sort?"

Back on the EggMada, the doctor supervised over the bat's work. "True. This isn't a search and rescue mission. But I have eliminated all other suspects. With my pride as a genius on the line, I say that you are right on top of them."

Rouge sighed, "What about their prisoner?"

The oval-shaped man pinched his nose in frustration. While he like to boast about his intellect, having to walk her through everything was taking its mental toll. "They are of no concern to us. I hope you understand that I could care less about you than I do about him. If you want your end of the deal, you should only worry about the package."

Not wishing to waste any extra effort on extra work, Rouge agreed and flew over to the warehouse roof. Several massive boxes were stuck out through the ceiling. "What was this warehouse built for, anyway?" Rouge asked.

"Storage, most likely." Eggman answered. "And some need to be ventilated for certain items. And judging by the size of the air ducts it should be a convenient way to sneak in, provided it's wide enough for your big head."

"Hey! You can't...!"

"No, you can't!" Eggman interrupted. "This is a stealth mission. Don't let anyone see you, don't let anyone hear you. Any outbursts and there will be trouble. So leave no trace behind." Getting a shot on her for a change did lighten his twisted mood. "Remember, we are looking for a lockbox. About the size of Cubot's stupid head, if it was lying on its side." There was a brief moment of silence followed be the sound of something hitting metal. "Shut up! She doesn't need to hear your whining!"

Before getting into another act of idiot theater, Rouge took his advice and went into the air duct. So much dust coated the metal walls over the years. Making a mental note to wash her hands later, Rouge climbed in to begin working her way to the ground level. She quickly learned that her method of descending was terrible as the dust made her lose her grip and she began to fall a short distance. With her wings furiously flapping in the confined space, she pressed her hands and feet into the opposing walls to regain stability. Thankful that she was long enough to stay put, her descent continued.

Softly at first, voices echoed off the walls. The bat already predicted that there would be company, so she was not too surprised. She stopped to listen, but the echoes were bouncing all over the place, getting distorted more and more. Rouge got closer to the opening of the chimney, adding clarity to the words that were being said. Just before the opening, she poked her head out enough to spy on her surroundings.

It was absurdly dark, saving for a spray light source that probably served the men's purpose. All the garages were open with that room being unoccupied. With the storage faculty being mostly open, she had an almost unobstructed view of the space. Right next to the entrance were the group talking with the mobian prisoner surrounded.

"Alright..." The fat man's voice reappeared. "Once you find the lockbox, you would need to open it there. It houses some valuable data, so if all else fails, we transmit it wirelessly and destroy the physical copy." Rouge shook her ash-covered hands in disgust before poking her head out to find a way to maneuver around them. Spying the high ceiling and the garage's box-like structures, she could sneak up from over head. Eggman peered at the screen to inspected it further. On the ground aside from the men was a slight flickering reflective surface. "See if you can get a better look at them. If that's the target, we might need to make a diversion."

Rouge rolled her eyes and soared to the ceiling to reach the connecting garages' rooftops. She inched forward until she was practically over the men, who were none the wiser. Even if it was not supposed to be her problem, she was the least bit curious about the captive. Still with the bag over his head, he was sitting upright, which showed that he was at least awake. With his wrists and ankles being tied up, any sign of him struggling would alert the others before he could make any progress. The rather odd thing was his outfit, which seemed to be prepared for most situations.

One of the men was interrogating the captive mobian. "Why were you, of all people, assigned to do this?!"

The prisoner yelled through the bag. "I swear! I don't know anything about what you're saying!"

"There no way they would sent in a nobody. They knew what was on the line. What they should have done was sent her in. It was the most obvious solution, and you ruined it!" The man stomped a few paces away.

Back to the doctor, he turned away from the microphone to list his observations. "Maybe...maybe that's way it seemed so easy."

"What do you mean?" Cubot asked from several feet away.

Eggman did a double take to make sure Rouge was not listening. "Several days ago, there was a tip that some of G.U.N.'s secrets were about to fall into someone else's hands. So they naturally had to get it back, but it took them days to act. So now, it looks like that 'failure' was their solution."

Orbot stated, "Well it seemed like they were expecting someone in particular, talking about a 'her'."

"Yes. They could have been talking about the brat. The tip came on the day I retook the Emerald from Tails."

"But that's when we found out that her age had been changed." Orbot remembered.

"They were probably scrambling to find her. It doesn't make sense to me now why they'll wait days for her personally, but they finally sent in a replacement. And that fool fell right into their trap."

"But if she was supposed to spy on them but those guys were waiting for her, then getting younger kind of saved her, in a way." Cubot brought up a good point.

On Rouge's end, the headset was unusually quiet. She did not have a clue about what was going on, but she did not think that it mattered to her. She scope the place until she found the reflected light from earlier. The light showed her exactly where the lockbox was. It was about as long as the space between her elbows if she stretched her arms to the side and was lying behind the corner to the first storage unit. To make matters better, there was nobody near it.

She silent drifted in the air to approach the box at ground level. At this point, Eggman returned to the microphone. "What the?!" He immediately was surprised to see that she already got to it. "Well, that sure saves time. But you need to see if you can open it. There should be a panel with a lens in it." After she was able to locate it, he continued. "Now, take off one of your gloves, put your palm on that panel, and hold the lens up to your eye."

Rouge paused at the instructions she was given. She would have expected she needed to crack a combination lock or Eggman unconventionally telling her she needed to find the key first. But seeing that she had to move quickly, she did as she was instructed. It seemed stupid for her to have her hand on the panel and just stare into the lens. Within two seconds, she understood why she had to do it as a small white light illuminated her eye and started scanning. In another two seconds, the lockbox opened.

"Wha...?" Orbot said in disbelief.

"H-h-ho-hoooo-hooooooow?!" Cubot stuttered, leading to a puff of smoke seeping through the cracks of his assembly.

"Put two and two together. The box is G.U.N. property. It should respond to a high ranking member, or person of special interest. Full handprint and retinal scan would be required to prove their identity." The doctor explained, again withdrawing the info from Rouge.

"But shouldn't something like her handprints be smaller than normal?" Asked the still steaming robot.

"And if she went missing, wouldn't they remove authentication?" Questioned the other.

"Sometimes you give them too much credit. First, their scans aren't looking for complete matches, just enough comparisons. Second, since it left the day she went missing, they couldn't alter it. Lastly, you shouldn't question her position. She's on speaking terms with the President, the Commander, and the 'People's Heroes'. She's to be feared for sure."

Blind to the situation, Eggman did not see what was happening on the other end of the line. The moment he turned his gaze, Rouge sensed that something was off. She felt that someone knew she was there. She attempted to duck away but was grabbed by an arm, spilling the contents of the box onto the ground. Unable to free herself, the man holding her revealed the thief to his cohorts.

"Okay, now this has to be some kind of joke! It's like they're teasing us!" Said the one holding Rouge.

With the others having their full attention on the bat, some laugh at just how ridiculous this was. To think that they would have encountered a kid that looks like the woman they were after was mildly amusing. It only took one of them to realize that this kid opened the box before everything changed. Almost too good to be true for them, they tied her similarly to that of the G.U.N. agent and scrambled to pick up what was in the box.

"Unbelievable..." One said over the others, "We better contact 'the guy' and tell him the deal's off. We don't need him to open jack, anymore!"

Abruptly, Eggman returned, having missing everything. "Huh? What in the blazes is going on?" He yells into Rouge's ear, causing visual distress. One of the guys noticed this, took the ear piece out, and chucked it down the hall. Another towered over her like a predator stalking its prey.

"Can't say you didn't have it coming." He twirled his lips in a sadist smile. "Of course you were going to pay for what you did to us, but I guess we should say thank you."

Despite the senses of worry and fear weighing on her, Rouge yelled out, "For what I did?! What did I do?!"

"You know, witch!" He mistakened her ignorance. "Never mind, with two G.U.N. agents, we could make for a good ransom. After punishment of course."

"Hold up!" A voice boomed from outside the warehouse door. Stunning everyone inside, this unknown presence began to lift the large metal door from the outside. In the next moment, it flew open revealing the silhouette of the eavedropper, with the golden chains around his neck being lit almost as if done by magic. While the bling's light dimmed, the image became brighter and brought into focus a headphone wearing crocodile mobian with a clear advantage in the strength department.

Regaining their composure, the man lined up to take on the intruder. "What do you think you're doing here?!" shouted one of them.

The mobian laughed briefly before he explained, "C'mon...Someone sent out a tip so I was like 'Well, there's that payday I've been dreaming about.' Looks like the picking good too; I surprised this place isn't swarmed by now."

By this time, the men drew their guns on him. With a scoff, he went the the van that they were riding in and pulled the bumper right off of it. His defacing actions did not stop there as he ripped a door off with as much ease.

"Two G.U.N. agents and a secret package, with a side of fun!" Like a warrior, he charged in, using the door as a shield and the bumper as a weapon.

The two captured Mobians were ignored as this was going on. Sensing the change in the atmosphere, the male spy struggled to take the sack off his head with his feet but succeeded. Rouge saw that the grey wolf spy's face was clean of any injuries, just drenched in sweat. He darted his eyes to the commotion that was going on then to Rouge, who he seemed to recognized. "Agent Rouge! What...Never mind that." She was already becoming accustomed to others reacting to her drop in age, giving him nothing but a roll of her eyes. "He is giving us time, but we need to find something to get us free." He waved his bound arms to emphasize the rope.

Rouge paused, staring off into space. "Actually, I don't think we need to..."

"What, why?!" was the only answer the wolf could give.

Rouge flashed her familiar smile with confidence. "We could just let our back-up do it for us."

The spy did not understand until he felt something tugging at his wrists. He was not sure how, but the rope was cut and undone. The same thing happened to free the girl's limbs afterwards. From behind her, a chameleon mobian appeared out of thin air. "How did you know I was here?" He asked calmed and collected.

The bat rubbed her freed wrist as she started to stand. "I'm a bat." She points her index fingers the the ears on top of her head. "Finding things with our ears is kinda our thing."

In another twist, one of the men recovered the box and its content and tried to make off with it. He can only turn his head in time to come face to face with a giant bee. Acting out of panic, he froze while the bee mobian kicked him across the face, causing the box to fall once more. The boy laughed at the man's reaction. "Haha, man! He was scared stiff."

So much happened in the span of a few seconds that the men became completely overwhelmed. Every mobian there made quick work out of the group, knocking them all unconscious. With the dust still settling, Team Chaotix huddled up to address the elephant in the room.

"Hey," Vector the Crocodile started, "They said two agents, right? So, is that who I think it is?"

"Yeah!" Charmy Bee replied blocking the side of his mouth with his hand. "She's looks just like that bat lady. It's got to be her."

Espio the Chameleon chimed in, "This isn't right, on many levels. More than her size, she would not have fallen for an obvious trap. What ever happened must have effected her skills."

"What happened?" Charmy began. "I know what happened. She must have gone in some weird machine, then something went wrong and it went fwoosh eaah eaah fop." His attempts to subtly gesture with his hands while keeping his voice hushed came off as ridiculous.

"Didn't I tell one of you that I have good hearing?" Rouge made the sly remark after having heard enough!

The three quickly split apart, Victor forcing his best presentable face. "Well, not only did we hit it big with that tip, but we also pulled off a rescue. Not bad for the Chaotix Detective Agency."

With that reminder, everyone looked around only to notice the wolf spy was missing. "Odd." Espio said bluntly. "Was he should to get the safebox too?"

A soft pause lead to a sheik from Charmy. "Ah! I was supposed to grab it, but...! Where is it? Where is it?!" It would not take long for him to find it. The spy did not take it before he scrammed, but some sort quadruped robot crab was on top of it. "Hey, back off!"

The crab thing jumped and did a midair 180 degree turn, facing the mobian group. "Hoo hoo hoo!" Eggman voice rang through the air. "Thanks for the distraction I needed, simpletons. You gave me the time I needed."

"Eggman!" The name was growl by the detective trio.

"Nothing but photos and papers. Absolutely wonderful! This information is simply too rich to not fall into my fully capable hands, ha ha!"

Rouge saw to little drone and recognized that it was the headset she had earlier. Perhaps the doctor was banking on the chance that she would fail. "So, what the heck is going on? What did I even do?" Rouge asked the robot.

Eggman ran his fingers across the mustache though it was invisible to them. "No need to worry you pretty little head over it. Just know that I will need to thank you in the future."

"Hold up! Rouge, what's really going on?" asked Victor.

"Of course you guys know me." The girl commented bitterly, remembering the hedgehogs' reactions. Earning a weird expression of confusion from the others, she returned to Eggman's robot." Anyway, you got what you wanted, right. You better keep your promise."

"I think not." Just those three words sent a shiver down Rouge's spine igniting her rage. "You were supposed to bring the box back to me on the EggMada. And you have yet to do that."

"But there's nothing to stop her from taking it to you now." Espio pointed out. His partners turned their faces to him in him trying to reason how Eggman can still get his target. "Maybe that did not need to be brought up." He scoffed in distaste.

"No no, you're right." Eggman reassured him. "Technically, she can return to me, but I already got every I need. Photos and papers, already transferred and saved. So I have no more business here." The crab drone started to rapidly blink red lights. "So what if there was nothing to return?"

The drone withdrew its legs, returning to its headset-form. "Self-destruct sequence activated." Boomed its last statement. The accelerated blinking alerted everyone of the inevitable explosion.

"No way!" Victor screamed.

"How low!" Espio whispered.

"No you don't!" Charmy yelled charging in to the bomb.

"Charmy! What are you doing?!" Victor and Espio screamed in unison over the bee's reckless move.

The bee flew as quickly as he could, delivering a punt to the bomb causing it to fly down the hall. Even with the robot no longer on the papers, the sequence was not interrupted. With Victor carrying the young Rouge out, Espio rushed in the grabbed Charmy's arm and yanked him away.

The allotted time allowed expired and the blast was much bigger than they expected. It blew all the dust out of the warehouse and caused a slight tremor to rattle the ground. The blast released smoke into the air as the surrounding car alarms sounded off, attracting attention in every direction. The scene was too chaotic for the Chaotix to stay loitering around. To avoid suspension, they made their way down the streets.

-10 minutes of running later-

"Let go of me!" Rouge shouted to Victor. He came to a quick halt and placed her on her feet before anyone would would mistaken this for a kidnapping.

"Okay. This should be far enough anyway." He looked back in the direction they were running from. "But you got to fill us in on what happened back there."

Rouge stomped her foot down on the ground, a metaphorical aura ripping the air around her. "He made me follow them for days just so I can open it. And on top of that, he strapped an explosive to my head." Her aura intensified. "I'm going to kill that man!" Rouge was dead-set on vengeance.

No one could argue with Rouge about what she went through, but with Chaotix still being in the dark about Rouge being a kid, it was up to her to repeat her story, excluding what the echidna girl told her.

When she was finished, Charmy had his hands behind his head. "Told ya!"

Victor jumped on Charmy's smug attitude. "Like you're one to talk. What you pulled back there was stupid. Really stupid!"

Charmy puffed his cheeks in anger. "Well what else were we supposed to do? Let him get what he wanted?"

"He already got what he wanted!"

With Victor and Charmy shooting daggers at each other, Espio began to point out some things that this new Rouge was most likely oblivious to. "Those guys back there, they were looking forward to someone finding them. They were looking for you."

"Yeah, I figured out that much." Rouge flatly stated. "But I don't remember why they would want to do that."

"That doesn't really matter right now," He said nearly immediately. "If you haven't realized it yet, you did quite a few missions while in G.U.N. Practically any of your former targets can seek revenge for what you did. You might have stood a better chance," Espio gestured with an open hand towards the child, "if this didn't happen."

This was not so much of a surprise to her at this point. To her, if one thing was going to go wrong, a chain reaction was surely going to make her life a misery. The few days she spent recovering at Tails' place were the only leisure she was going to get.

Despite the ongoing confrontation between him and Charmy, Victor held every word and chimed in. "She can deal with it when it comes to that. But right now, we got bigger things to worry about."

"Yeah! We got to beat up Eggman for what he did!" The over-excited bee yelled.

"What? No! He destroyed the evidence that was going to get us paid! All the following, the lack of sleep, the hope of fixing the leaking roof, all gone in a boom!" The anger in his eyes soon disappeared after some contemplation. "Yeah, let's go with your idea."

"But we have no idea where he is." Espio shot down the idea.

"Maybe..." Rouge fished around in one of her pocket and pulled out a few slips of paper.

"Woah! Were those some of the papers in the box? When did you get them?" Exclaimed Victor.

"When he cut the ropes around my wrists, I just grabbed it. I'm not entirely sure why." she stated with a puzzled look.

"It's like the other you tried to help you or something." Victor suggested. "Honestly, you should take what you get."

The papers that Rouge snagged were incomplete without the other material, and the vocabulary flew over most of their heads. The most discernible thing, however, was the biggest clue they could get; a series of paired numbers written in a line. "Coordinates." Espio said silently. After a quick online search, the destination planted them deep in the desert.

"The desert? Why did it have to be in a desert?" Charmy whined.

Rouge ignored the complaining boy, "At least, I grabbed these before that Eggfreak could see it. We could ambush him or something."

"But that means we are going to have to wait, in a desert!" Charmy objected due to the inconvenience of the scouring heat.

"It's our best bet right now." Espio countered.

"Plus if we find out what going on there before him, we could be compensated." Victor defended to Charmy's emotional dismay.

Rouge looked up in the direction they came from. By now, the explosion had attracted much attention from the police, fire department, and news helicopters. "We shouldn't stick around anyway."

Victor caught her drift. "Yeah. The sooner we go, the better." With that, Rouge, Victor, Espio, and Charmy started moving. Until each one drew out exaggerated yawns."But, maybe a little shut-eye wouldn't be that bad of an idea, right?"

-?-

"I saw her. I'm sure it was Agent Rouge."

"You should have secured her if she was."

"I couldn't have taken down the four of them in my condition. I was going to shadow her, but Dr. Robotnik somehow set up a bomb there. I saw them escape, but nothing more."

"*sigh* The Commander would go ballistic when he hears this."

"One more thing... The doctor mention something about an 'EggMada'."

 **Have I mentioned that I don't own (most of) these characters? That SEGA does...Yes? Good.**

 **To those who were reading somewhat regularly before, sorry. I am not going to sugar-coat this. Want to know what happened? World of Warcraft Prepatch. Yeah that far back. So there was Legion (lots of it), then Ace Attorney, then Pokémon. Then I was like 'Wait...I need to keep writing'...back in November. But of course, I'm prone to procrastinate. So I made to note to upload on New Years.**

 **I wish I had a better excuse to tell you, but I don't.**

 **That being said, this the end of the second Emerald arc. Next time, we're going on an adventure. This Friday, I swear!**


	13. Chapter 12

In the middle of the day, the leaves overhead block nearly all sunlight from reaching the ground below. Except for the few patches present in the canopy, the air was trapped and condensed, radiating a humid heat wave. This was the first obstacle inhabitants would have to face in order to settle this land, but one can sent an entire day and only find insects. Without human or mobian intervention, this land continued to grow wild, independent from society. For those who enjoyed the settled life, they are understandably biased to avoid Torturous Jungle.

Not so much torturous to those who weathered the storm. Despite the humidity threatening to weight down his fur, Tails was too interested with the task at hand. His mission was a simple fetch quest, but the jungle was playing host in this game. One's composure wanes after seeing so many trees and plants that look the same and more often than not getting lost in direction. He took the challenge head-on, persevering to gather the object he had his eye on.

Even though he was no longer in the care for Kid Rouge anymore, he continued working to understand how the ageing machine worked and the Chaos Energy involved with it. Plus, the question Amy asked was stuck in his mind: what if he would have jump Rouge ahead to far ahead? Nature might hold the answers, at least that was what he hoped for. He read about a species of wild berries that grew unpredictably into one of six distinct shapes. Maybe he could see just how random it really was.

"That study said that the roots of the plant filter some of the impurities in stagnant water, so if can find some sort of puddle..." He glanced from right to left, turning the land over in his mind. Flying to get an aerial view would not help him here since the plant grows close to the ground. "Why didn't it directly tell me how to find one?"

Tails kept up his search until his watch rang, telling him that someone was trying to call. "Tails, any luck on your end?" Sonic questioned on the other end.

"No..." Tails sounded dejected. "I can't find anything, but I'm sure that we are on the right track." He was more than the least bit grateful that he did not have to do this alone.

"If those fruit do what you said they do, then I hope we could get some soon." The blue hedgehog was not caught up in the specifics in Tails' plans, but he knew enough. As per usual, he needed no better reason to help him than to lend the helping hand.

Off the bit of silence following their literal fruitless efforts, a boom sounded off in the distance, deeper into the jungle. "What the?! What can cause an explosion in a jungle?!" Tails scream in shock, already rushing to the source of the sound.

"No idea, but come on!" Sonic instructed as if he was right next to him.

There was no mistake about it, whatever happened was not natural. While the two raced to uncover the event that took place, the scenery only started to mess with them more. Even with their new sense of urgency, navigating through the woods was not going well. The trees were too similar to each other, there was not a river present that either of them could follow, and the leaves blocked the sky, forcing them to move without any landmarks.

In a moment of desperation, Tails remembered the obvious; he could fly. Rotating his twin tails, he hovered overhead to break through the obstructed skyline. Weaving inbetween hanging vines and lone branches, two thoughts were present in his mind. One, if he did not find anything unusual now, it could spell a disaster to those who were involved. If he did, then it would be the second sign of the worst case scenario. Clearing the line, he found thought number two.

Columns of smoke, black as charcoal, emerged from the ground level. At Tails' height, he felt a powerful gust of winds coming from its direction. "Sonic...!" He began to find some way to relay what he found.

"I know, I can smell where its coming from now." He replied, sprinting forward.

All eyes on the target, it was a mad dash; Sonic on the ground and Tails in the air. Speeding ahead, the situation was getting worse. Close to the base of the fire, flashes of orange and red could been seen. The more time that was pushed, the bigger the pillar of smoke became. With the smoke been to spread past the airborne fox, an intense heat flash plastured itself against him, heating him through his previous humid fur. Finally on the approach, light debris was floating above the leaves and a cackling sound was heard. The jungle was launching into a complete inferno.

Descending, Tails blocked his face due to the initial intensity of the flames. When he landed, Sonic was already at work, rolling over embers on the floor and suffocating of the fires with his Blue Tornado technique. "Tails, find out if there are any survivors!" He shouted in the middle of his work.

Fully taking on the the responsibility, Tails continued, stomping out whatever fire he could. "With the wing blowing in that direction," he pointed up with his finger to illustrate, "then it should have started over...there!" He somehow found the energy in himself to pick up the pace even further. Jumping over shrubs and exposed roots, he eventually caused the gap and came face-to-face with the answer.

A duo of humans in uniform were found, one beings supported by the other. They were wearing protective helmets that covered their respective faces, but the capital 'G' told him what he needed to know. "Well aren't you a sight for sore eyes." the weakened one gasped.

"What happened here?" the fox roared over the fire.

In these circumstances, they resulted their previous training now than they should ever hope for. The one carrying his teammate scanned the fire before returning to Tails "Sorry, but we really don't have time to talk this out. We need to get out of here! Take his legs, and go easy on the ankle."

Not much of an argument there. With the hurt agent hoised up, the three move to a safer place. Tails could have held the man alone, but would either have to leave one behind or carry both, which was going to be counterproductive. "If we're lucky, the high winds would blow it away from us."

"But wait...Sonic's still putting out the fire over there." He turned his head in the other direction.

"Sonic!" The carried one gasped again. "He's tough, but even he can't keep it up for long. He might pass out from smoke inhalation before he even makes a dent."

"But..." the boy started.

"Plus, the winds could start new fires that might end up boxing him in. Do us a favor and get him out of here. Torturous Jungle is uninhabited and we're the only ones here."

Shifting the man's leg under his armpit, Tails called Sonic from his watch. "Sonic, I'm with the survivors. We're leaving right now."

"Really?" Sonic looked around him. He swore spots that he covered were re-lit and only started to take note of the smoke polluted air. "Alright then." He wished there was more he could do, but for once he was the one who could not keep up.

Finding Tails and the agents moments later, their retreat was became much faster. They broke through the walls of red and orange and made their way deeper in the greenery. The air was getting cleaner and clearer, but they were not out of the woods yet.

"Damn!" One of the men spat out. "Evac is going to be a problem. We're nowhere nearly a clear extraction point and the winds is getting to intense. It's almost like this place really wants us to suffer."

"What about the fire department?" Sonic said as he stared into the smoke.

"On their way, but there isn't a river or lake big enough nearby to make the fight much easier."

Tails was pondering about if there was any way to fix this. They could not quell it by hand nor with assistance. Then he started to trail off thinking about those berries he was looking for. The berries and the puddles of water they were supposed to grow near. Hearing the issue with the bodies of water, the lack the water was driving him nuts. Mentally embarrassed at himself for losing track of what was going on, he physically slapped his forehead. "Wait a minute..." The hit brought something to light."How...is that possible?"

"Something on your mind, buddy?" Sonic asked.

"When we were searching earlier, Sonic, did you see any water anywhere?"

Sonic twisted a finger to his temple, as if cranking the gears in his head. "None that I can remember. Especially enough to control that."

"That's the problem." The other three in attendance grunted in confusion. "It's a jungle, it's full of plants. Signs of water should be everywhere. Not only that, but there is so much water in the air that it pretty much sticks to you." Sonic nodded in agreement. "So why haven't we seen any of it? Where does it come from?"

"Don't jungles and rainforest regulated themselves with their own storm system?" Speculated the twisted-ankle agent.

"Could they do that without a body of liquid water?" Tails asked back to receive a shrug in response. "I think I know where we can find some; underground."

"Okay, I get it." Sonic followed, "but just finding it isn't going to help us."

"It can, if we have the right tools." He turn to the G.U.N. operatives. "You guys were probably in mechs before the explosion, right?"

Focus now on them, they had no way to avoid answering these questions. "Yeah, we were. Something went wrong in the fuel storage system, then things went ablaze in no time at all. Survived the landing, for the most part." The collapsed one bitterly stated. "We'll have to complain the eggheads in Depart Six later."

"Any missiles at all?"

"Clusters, but sure."

"Then we can use the bombs the dig up the earth to get water, and scavenge the mechs. If the engine still work, we can flip the flight mechanic upside-down to send the water up to the sky. The water would soak the fire and stop it from spreading." Tails laid out his plan to the group.

"Good plan, but it won't work." argued an agent. "The fuel system is destroyed. Even if it wasn't, it's not powerful enough to send water flying."

Tails made a logical counter, "Maybe not, but Sonic is."

"Wait, what?!"

-20 Minutes Later-

Tails plan was going off without a hitch. Using the missiles, they open laid siege to a carefully chosen spot to open a hole in the earth. Striking water, a lot of it, the mechs were disassembled and relocated out of the smoke and in the favor of he wind. Along with the genius's resourcefulness, they managed a makeshift pump. They set a small elliptical to harness the motion energy that Sonic was going to provided. All that was left was their energy source.

"Are you sure there's a better way to do this." Sonic shouted from the middle of their man-made lake.

"The point is to make sure that everything gets wet, Sonic." Tails knew the fear Sonic has with water, but he also knew Sonic would not back down for such a petty reason.

Without anymore debate and the trees still on fire, Sonic revved up to his typical speed. Half a second later, the water shot out from the nozzle and hit the leaves overhead with so much force that they were cut clean through. The stream continued, causing the water level to sink dramatically. They had little idea how well it was working, still banking on the only idea they had in mind. The lake was only able to give so much before giving out completely.

Sonic was unfortunately drenched by the end, but was more concerned about the results. He did not feel anything rain down on him, only from the splashing of the intake, so that was a good sign. He quickly ran vertically up a tree to the top, soon to be met by Tails. From on top, the smoke still seeped through, but the roar of the flame died down. A massive part of the fire was out, but a few were still present. Thankfully, a better sight came when they turned around and saw the fire department aircraft starting to make its rounds.

"Yes! That couldn't have gone better." Tails screamed in excitement.

"Good job bu-u...achoo!..." Sonic took a minute to wipe his nose. "That crazy plan actually worked."

-10 Minutes Later-

"Okay, so they said that it'll take a while, but it is far more manageable." They give the status report. "We still have to wait evac, but now we're not so much in a hurry."

"That's a relief." sighed Tails.

"Didn't wake up this morning thinking our day would be like this." chuckled the injured agent. "Try to do one thing and end up doing something entirely different."

"Oh yeah...Tails, are we still going to look for those things."

Sonic did not specify, but Tails caught what he was saying. "Ah! I forgot about that! Those berries were supposed show me if there was a way to fix Rouge's problem without any consequences."

The agents stiffened at the mention of her name.

"I know. By the way, do you guys how she's doing?" In Sonic's last recollection of the matter, she was put into G.U.N.'s custody.

"Uh...Sorry, bu-ufgh!" said one of the agents before the injured socked him in the chest.

"Screw protocol. Whether or not you believe it, we might as well owe them our lives." This action and the look on his face let everyone know he was dead serious. "Rouge, the day we got her, we lost her...to Eggman."

"What?!"

"That's what the rumor is, and heck, I believe it. And it'll make the other plan make more sense."

"What other plan'?" asked the shocked fox.

"Department Five, those in charge foreign threat analysis, are stepping up their research on the EggFleet, and the new head of it. More rumors, but the one about the secret information was to the letter."

Tails started to panic a little. Not only was Rouge gone, but she fell into the worst hands.

Sonic placed a hand on his shoulder to get him to calmed down. "Hey, take it easy, okay. If he has her, then we have to fight to get her back. Strike fast, get it over and done with."

Upon hearing Sonic's words, he knew he would need time to think. Overall, if he was to pursue her, he was going to be the one calling the shots. "Thanks." he said to the honest agent. "Are you guys going to be safe if we go?"

He just nodded. His injury was not so much a burden to him right now.

Sonic and Tails withdrew from the day they had. The problem they had beforehand was still present, and were still going to play a part in it.

"What about that one rumor about the detective agenecy?"

"Seriously? There's no way they could've heard about the tip."

 **You know what Sonic and Tails have in common? They owned be SEGA. What SEGA and I have in common...uhh...nothing, really. Formally, at least.**


End file.
